Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1054784
SAG-AFTRA member leaders representing San Francisco Bay Area television stations KGO, KPIX, KTVU and KRON met with news station management, San Francisco and Oakland police, and representatives from NABET and IATSE on Sept. 19 to discuss safety issues affecting news crews in the Bay Area and improve safety on the job. From left, Amber Lee, Dan Kerman, Laura Anthony, Lt. Matt Stonebraker, Dave Twedell, Joe Vazquez, Jennifer Mistrot, National Board member Bob Butler and Carrie Biggs-Adams. The shooter had been angry that the newspaper reported his guilty plea for stalking, and had filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against the company. While this murderous rampage was an extreme reaction, hostility toward the media has been growing in recent years, and incidents such as the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the targeting of CNN's New York office by a mail bomber provoke increasing concern that other unstable personalities could snap. "I think that the anger that is being stirred up about the media, that we are somehow the enemies of the people, makes us targets. We're not enemies of anybody. We're just trying to do our job," said SAG-AFTRA National Board member Joe Krebs. Krebs is also the chair of the union's National Broadcast Steering Committee, and at its meeting in New York on Oct. 6, topping the agenda was broadcasters' safety and the climate of fear. Elected leaders and authority figures are setting a hostile tone toward those whose job it is to hold them accountable, with the message often amplified by social media. Hostility toward the press and even physical attacks on journalists have been celebrated by public officials. Members of the press who are doing their important work of telling the truth to the public have become the target of politically motivated attacks and charges of "fake news." SAG-AFTRA Vice President, Broadcast Catherine Brown pushes back at the notion that reporters are spinning their stories to fit a predetermined agenda. "We're trained to be objective reporters. To have that questioned at all turns is frustrating," she said. "The traditional news organizations and broadcast journalists are not trying to fool anybody." At this year's Excellence in Journalism conference in Baltimore on Sept. 28, a panel titled Rising Threats to Press Freedom discussed how access to information and the freedoms of the press were already eroding under the Obama administration, which tracked reporters' phone records and chalked up a record-setting number of prosecutions of people accused of leaking sensitive information. Now, under President Trump, the vitriol targeting the media has become more overt, and other countries are following America's lead. Reporters Without Borders, which participated in the panel, issues a World Press Freedom Index each spring, and this year the United States was down to rank 45 among the 180 countries listed. In presenting this year's rankings, the organization wrote, "Hostility towards the media from political leaders is no longer limited to authoritarian countries … More and more democratically elected leaders no longer see the media as part of democracy's essential underpinning, but as an adversary to which they openly display their aversion." It has left journalists feeling vulnerable, and at the Broadcast Steering Committee meeting, many recounted incidents of stalking or confrontation that left them feeling unsettled. Only a month prior to the BSC meeting, SAG-AFTRA National Board member Hal Eisner, a reporter with Fox 11 in Los Angeles, was out with colleagues interviewing bystanders in the aftermath of a pursuit when a cyclist approached. Seeing the Fox logo on the van, the man stopped, spat on the van and made disparaging remarks. "I think the issue there is what could happen," said Eisner. "You always have to worry about the unexpected. When people are bold — and that's bold — how much bolder will they get?" Although safety has always been a core issue for SAG-AFTRA, the union and its member leaders are redoubling their efforts nationally and at locals across the country. In the San Francisco Bay Area, gang members were assaulting reporters and stealing their equipment. This led to the creation of biannual safety summits, partnerships between station management, local police and industry unions, including IATSE, IBEW and NABET. The union is also committed to including safety language in the contracts it negotiates with employers. For example, a recent agreement with Disney included sagaftra.org | Fall 2018 | SAG-AFTRA 75