SAN FRANCISCO - He may or may not be a journalist, but as a videographer, Josh Wolf knows what he's doing. He was filming an anti-globalization protest in San Francisco in 2005, and when things turned violent, Wolf got low and close with his camera, capturing the struggle of a police officer putting a young anarchist in a headlock.
It's compelling viewing.
Josh Wolf's video of a violent protest in San Francisco (a frame seen here) landed him in jail.
At the same protest, a San Francisco policeman had his skull fractured in a clash with protesters. Protesters also allegedly attempted to torch a police car.
Prosecutors demanded to see if Wolf's uncut video showed either of these things; they also wanted him to testify in front of a grand jury.
Wolf argued that because he was a journalist, he couldn't be forced to use his reporting to help in criminal investigation — a practice that would turn the media into an arm of law enforcement.
The court didn't see it that way, and he was sent to jail, where he remained for 226 days on contempt of court charges. That's longer than any journalist has suffered in similar cases.
But was Wolf really a journalist? On his Web site, he called himself an activist and an anarchist.
In March, Wolf spoke with me from the Dublin Federal Correctional Institution.
I asked if he filmed selectively — would he turn off his camera to protect activist friends? He was noncommittal, saying that the decision would have to be "made in the moment," but he challenged the idea of pure journalism vs. activism, citing American independence advocate Thomas Paine. "Would you not say that Thomas Paine was an activist? I see that advocacy has a firm role within the realm of journalism."
My own take is that Paine would not claim to be a journalist but an activist. And, as I pointed out to Wolf, as an advocate you have to be willing to allow yourself to be jailed and expect the consequences of your actions. As a journalist, you're asking for certain protections from those consequences. Which was he?
"My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public," he said. "That is my No. 1 accountability."
But is that truth filtered through his own political convictions?
"The truth is biased by everyone's convictions," he said. "If you watch the videotape, you'll see there are many things that make the protesters look bad and there are things that make the cops look bad. It is essentially a balanced report of what I saw. It's a bird's eye view."
Drawing the line
While columnists and editorial writers may work for journalistic organizations, their opinions mean that their content is usually labeled "opinion" or news analysis, rather than presented as an attempt at objective news reporting.
Because he is an avowed activist whose commitment to objectivity is certainly in question, it would make sense that Josh Wolf's video reporting would need to fall under that same category. And, like columnists or editorial page writers, he too, could be entitled to journalistic protections.
Wolf spent 226 days in jail on the principle that bloggers can be journalists. AP File
But perhaps the greatest irony of the debate was that in Josh Wolf's case, whether he was a journalist or not had absolutely no legal bearing whatsoever.
Forty-nine states have some type of protection for journalists, called shield laws, which keep criminal investigators from compelling reporters to turn over their notes or tapes, or from testifying unnecessarily.
However, Wolf's case was in federal court, where there are no shield laws. So the very debate he ignited over the definition of a journalist meant nothing without some kind of federal shield law protection.
After almost eight months in jail, Wolf struck a deal with prosecutors, agreeing to post his video outtakes on his blog, which he says didn't show anything anyway. He would not have to testify.
Journalist or not, Wolf left prison sounding like one.
"Journalists absolutely have to remain independent of law enforcement,'' he told reporters outside the gates of the prison the day he left. "Otherwise, people will never trust journalists.''
He also vowed to work to push for the creation of a federal shield law.
-Producer: Jamie Rubin
-Video Editors: Freddy Weinberg, Edo Brizio
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