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H18251

Headlines : Civil Liberties

Summary:

The police’s harassment of the press during the conventions, and the tear gas, remind the senior writer of Bill Moyer’s Journal of his street reporting during 1970’s anti-war demonstrations. But “[w]hat was different in St. Paul was that the police seemed especially intent on singling out independent journalists and activists covering the Republican convention for the Internet and other alternative forms of media.” ... “What has those in control worried is that despite what the politicians tell us from inside their fortified compounds where the party line rules, more and more people outside have cameras and laptops, and they’re not afraid to use them.”

[Posted By hungeski]

By Michael Winship
Republished from Consortiumnews.com

70's street reporter again whiffs tear gas.

Chronicling his life as a journalist in the colonial British Raj, a young Winston Churchill wrote that “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” Nor, I’d add, is there anything in life quite so discombobulating as to turn a corner and unexpectedly walk into a wall of tear gas.

It happened to me on a couple of occasions during the years of anti-Vietnam war protests, when I was a college student and young reporter in Washington, DC. One time I was gassed while filming a counterdemonstration on Honor America Day, a nationally televised celebration hosted by Bob Hope.

As God is my witness, the gas hit just as Kate Smith was singing, “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.”

The following year, 1971, demonstrators came from around the country to shut Washington down during morning rush hour. A photographer, another reporter and I were on the scene covering a failed attempt to close the Key Bridge crossing of the Potomac.

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