Reply to Shocking behavior from Fairfax County Police Offices

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Mike Stark here, the reporter.

I'll address a few different topics that have been raised.

First, media credentials: "credentials" are issued by venues. The House and Senate has a credentialing office called the Gallery. State Houses, concert venues, sports stadiums and other organizations that frequently deal with media will generally establish their own criteria for credentialing. Some cities, like NYC and DC will also issue credentials to press that apply for them, but the vast majority of journalists do not. Most of us work from our desks with our telephone. Here, in Anandale, I'm not aware of any credentialing office for the parade. So was I credentialed? Well, I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. When I'm asked for credentials, I produce my cell phone and navigate to my page on ShareBlue (which serves several million pages per day), and, if required, to other places I've been a reporter. But even who is and is not a reporter is something that's difficult to define. Are David Brooks, Sean Hannity, Paul Krugman and Peggy Noonan press? I think so... But they do something different from Lester Holt and Shepard Smith. And what about TMZ? The point is that I report news and people read my stuff. Sometime's I'm credentialed, sometimes I'm not. At this parade, credentials were irrelevant.

Next, the police order: The policeman told me to get out of the road. I complied with his order to get out of the road, immediately. Then the policeman told me to leave the campaign alone. I told him he'd have to arrest me if he expected me to comply with that order. He said he would. Now things started escalating quickly. I told him I was a reporter. He didn't care. Less than a minute later, I was face down on the sidewalk with a bunch of cops on top of me.

Here's the deal: I was there to cover the parade. Anyone remember the First Amendment and the clause about freedom of the press? Ed Gillespie thinks that doesn't apply to him; that he can enlist police to protect him from the press. That's absurd! I've got every bit the same right to public spaces that Gillespie does. We're both equal citizens. The police shouldn't be taking his side or mine - they should simply enforce the laws. And there is nothing illegal about me asking a candidate for governor questions on behalf of my news organization.

I've got more to say, but some work just came across my desk. Evidently, Gillespie called Northern Virginia "enemy territory"... I've got some writing to do. Catch you later.
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So, let's reviewed...

You're not actually a credentialed reporter. Do you have credentials on Capitol Hill? With police? With any campaign? The blog used the word "credentials" and said you had "credentials." But all you seem to say is you wrote something on the Web and that makes you a reporter. No, you're not. You're IMPERSONATING a reporter. Please stop calling yourself "press." You're muddying the waters for both Democrats and journalists.

Signed, a Democrat and an actual journalist, credentialed by the House and Senate press galleries, the White House, four federal agencies, three different presidential campaigns, and in my earlier years, five different law enforcement agencies (in different cities). Qualifying for credentials, BTW, generally means fulfilling a set of criteria that asks about financial independence and in the case of the White House undergoing a background check by the Secret Service. There is ACCOUNTABILITY associated with those credentials. You don't just identify yourself as a reporter and navigate on your cell phone to a blog you write.

Should you have been arrested? I don't know. But you do seem rather belligerent and interested in escalating the situation rather than diffusing it. And, in this case, you violated one of the basic tenets of actual journalism: Never make YOURSELF the story.

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+1,000[/quote]

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