My apologies, this is long. I had an unsettling experience today and wanted to get some takes from journalists.
My family lives near the East Palestine train derailment in Ohio. I used to work as an environmental scientist, and while I am not a journalist I’m very interested in documenting this event. I have a pretty nice mirrorless camera and wanted to photograph a large fish kill downstream from the derailment site, as well as get some water samples for VOC analysis. By complete coincidence, I happened to pull up to the site at the same time as a vehicle marked as an environmental consulting group that I quickly recognized (it’s a pretty large firm and I actually used to work on projects with them).
I didn’t really pay any mind to their vehicle. Since I recognized them as consultants I assumed they’d get out and start sampling the stream (again, full of dead fish), and since I was in a public space outside the evacuation zone I assumed I had nothing to worry about.
When I stepped out of my car with my camera, someone who I’m assuming was the manager of the group blocked my path and asked if I was media. I told them no, that I simply lived nearby and wanted to photograph the fish kill. They informed me that if I was media there to film them while they sampled I would be arrested by the national guard who were posted up the road closer to town, and they had already been put on standby once they saw the camera. They told me they were an independent third party hired by Norfolk Southern.
The situation felt extremely uneasy, and it took some convincing to get them to believe I was not media. Eventually I found common ground with them by explaining that I understood what they were doing, worked in a similar job before, and had no intent to film them. When they were convinced I was not a journalist they eventually took a more friendly tone and asked me to wait until they left to photograph, which I did.
Before they left, the same manager encouraged me to call Norfolk Southern’s contracted toxicologist for information on water testing and gave me their number. They were pretty adamant on me having it and encouraged me to not get “caught up in fear mongering.” They left and I got my shots.
I was honestly so focused on diffusing the situation (and saying what I needed to get them to quit alluding to arrest) that I didn’t really process the reality of what they told me until a bit after.
So, if you made it this far-
Isn’t detaining media from filming something like this extremely illegal? If I was media, wouldn’t I have had the right to be there? Are there special circumstances where this is permissible? Should I be reporting this somewhere?
I want to believe they were there to independently and thoroughly analyze this obviously polluted water. They expressed empathy for the community and said they understood my concern. However, the whole thing really unsettled me. I had a relative with me during all of this (they mostly kept a quiet and hung back) but no recordings of our exchange.
Thanks in advance.
https://www.reddit.com/user/lergx574
https://reddit-user-analyser.netlify.app/#lergx574
Long-established account that doesn't post in any bullshit or conspiratorial subreddits.
edit: From their comments-
I was shooting from the road (parked on the shoulder, which was very wide).
The consulting group was EnviroScience, Inc.
Actual reporter here. The amount of hassle you get from private companies and local pigs when covering any kind of infrastructure breakdown, not just apocalyptic ones like this, is horrifying. I legit get anxiety attacks even just getting assinged to cover a tractor crash on some country back road.
People on the left make fun of press for expecting some kind of special protection from police / private security, but it's getting to the point where cops are actively singling us out and making an example of us for doing our fucking jobs.
When I first started, before I even had a press pass from my job, I used to have to fight with cops just to take pictures of like a bagel shop that was closing down. Then there was a couple years where I'd flash my credentials and cops would grumble but leave me alone.
Now it's at the point where sometimes I'll show cops my press pass, but they'll demand to look at it more closely and say with a shit-eating grin that it doesn't look real, they'll have to call it in. Or just say they don't care and mean mug me until I back off. Been patted down more than once for trying to get my fucking phone into a courthouse, like I'm going to assault the traffic clerk or something.
Or they’ll put you in a ditch and get two weeks paid leave for the trouble and a fine to your family for damage incurred to their truncheons during a kinetic situation with your skull.
:yea:
it’s getting to the point where cops are actively singling us out and making an example of us for doing our fucking jobs.
This is what the status quo used to be in Marx's time. We are returning to norm.
All it takes is one local disaster for small towns to switch into fascism mode, when the companies say jump, the local government, local cops, and national guard respond “how high?”
https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg
The transportation secretary hasn't even tweeted about it despite it being a direct result of decaying rail infrastructure and underfunding of crews/engines. In bad communist country, the entire state is complicit in poisoning the population and has a media blackout surrounding it.
Of course he hasn't tweeted about it. He knows he'd get immediately slammed. It's media blackout, the weather balloon was cover for it.
There’s no such thing as “media cover” anymore, because nobody can do anything about this anyways. The news cycle moves so fast and Americans have become so convinced of their powerlessness that there is no need to “move the cycle along.” Nothing sticks, you don’t need to pull a fast one. Sorry for the rant
The speed and efficiency with which America can mobilize to do what it wants when it comes to crushing dissent is inspiring.
DON'T GET CAUGHT UP IN FEAR MONGERING, OK??? YOU CAN'T JUST GO AROUND SAYING OUR INFRASTRUCTURE IS COLLAPSING AND PEOPLE ARE DYING. THAT'S NOT TRUE. WHAT ARE WE, SOVIET CHINA?!?!?!?!
That moment in half life where that scientist thinks the military arrived to save them
National Guard: We're here to mitigate and contain this disaster
:padme1: Oh good! To clean up and contain the toxic waste, right?
:padme2: To deal with the toxic waste, right?
https://twitter.com/TayCallidryas
I got it from this river ecologist's twitter. They're sampling downstream of the burn and finding dead wildlife 9 miles away.
Today I found more dead fish in Little Beaver Creek around 9 miles from the derailment. I can’t say for sure that these didn’t drift downstream from a larger die-off, but I still think it’s worth noting. This is only what I could view from a bridge.
Little Beaver Creek is a wild and scenic area in Ohio. The Little Beaver Creek watershed is located primarily in Columbiana County in eastern Ohio, and in portions of Carroll County, Mahoning County, and western Pennsylvania, draining approximately 605 mi² (1,567 km²), of which 503 mi² (1,303 km²) are in Ohio. The watershed in total size covers an area of approximately 510 square miles, with about 80% of this being situated in Ohio. The great majority of land within the watershed is privately owned. Within the watershed are roughly 808 miles of linear streams.
The creek is protected by a number of classifications, including Ohio Wild and Scenic River and National Scenic River, as well as being part of Ohio's state park system. It is the only major river in Ohio to have dual State Wild and Scenic and National Scenic River designations, and was the first in the country to earn both distinctions. The creek empties into the Ohio River just east of East Liverpool, Ohio. The now-defunct Sandy and Beaver Canal was constructed alongside the creek.
According to an Ohio Department of Natural Resources study conducted in 2004, Little Beaver Creek is an exceptionally clean waterway with a highly diverse ecosystem. It supports 63 species of fish, 49 mammal species, 270 species of migratory and resident birds and 46 species of reptiles and amphibians, including the rare and protected salamander known as the hellbender. It is thought to be the only riparian corridor in the United States which shows geologic evidence of all five ice ages.
Little Beaver Creek has several forks, which lead generally in a southern and easterly direction. The North Fork and Middle Forks of the creek join in confluence at Laurel Point in the unincorporated village of Fredericktown, Ohio. From here the creek flows down to the Ohio River.
shit I posted this long thing about how capitalist media is inherently propaganda and then I realized this is /r/journalism and these nerds are probably going to react badly to that
In classic liberal fashion, they couldn't comprehend your comment as being anything other than a Trump supporter lol
I don't think anyone responded to me tho. I think /u/RedditIsPropaganda actually might be a q/trump type, idk I didn't look at their post history, saying the media is "under governmental control" is a red flag to me though. Like yeah you and I know that it essentially is since it's under bourgeois influence and the government is owned by the bourgeoisie but I think framing it like that implies they believe in some evil government controlling the media w/ no class analysis type thinking
I think /u/RedditIsPropaganda actually might be a q/trump type, idk I didn’t look at their post history
Definitely an antivax crank, probably all the rest
Ah, that was the only comment I saw earlier that was like that, so I assumed that was yours. And yeah I agree about the wording.
You got a reply in which someone assures you that they've never experienced bias with no regard for the pre-selection for bias that comes with getting the job or the narrow viewpoints they hold that happen to align with their employer's definition of reality.. Like something straight out of Inventing Reality.
I wish I read this before responding because that's basically what I said but talking about the ideological requirements to be hired and the phrase selection bias would have been good
You can try dropping this intro on the Five Filters of Mass Media on them but they're probably beyond reach. Seems like they're trying to end the conversation before you break them.
y'all need to be dropping in on there with this shit, every time I get set onto Reddit by some Hexbear post I'm in the trenches alone
lol, I do need to make another account for this crap. But also, I'm not sure how well this tactic is really usable. I'd much more recommend dropping related resources for people to click on than getting into it with an individual who isn't going to listen to what you have to say anyway. Then it becomes useful because you can have people upvote the resource post and give their endorsements that help add legitimacy to the arguments while downvoting the haters.
"What goes up, must come down"
"Your inability to understand that not everything is absolute and there are exceptions to your own biases makes this tedious."
I just went back to that thread and they've deleted their account. :lenin-laugh:
Relevant anecdote, from https://equalityalec.substack.com/p/how-the-media-enables-violent-bureaucracy-bc9
In 2021, I raised concerns about the articles to some of the New York Times reporters who wrote one of the stories. Several reporters were respectful and engaged with me, including having a productive meeting at which it appeared to me that the small group who met with me was skilled, experienced, and well-intentioned. There’s a lot more to say, but I want to highlight the main aspect of one reporter’s first written response to me before our meeting: “I don’t write editorials or opinion pieces. This story was really about what these reports said.”
There are two interesting aspects of this response. First, the second sentence is revealing. In it, the reporter was asserting to me that the kind of critique I was suggesting—one with accurate historical context and cognizant of ideological bias around words like “mistakes” and “missteps”—was considered an opinion piece. This often happens: critiques that challenge conventional wisdom are seen as lacking “objectivity,” while reporting based on certain premises, however absurd and contrary to the evidence those premises are, is seen as “objective” so long as it parrots conventional wisdom among certain subcultures of the professional class.1
Second, and this becomes vital after you’ve read the next section, the reporter was telling me that the story their editors chose to write was actually not a story about the police violence or its true causes or its true solutions, but a story about what official reports said were its causes and solutions.
There's actually a third thing worth noticing. "This story was really about what these reports said", while contrasting with opinion pieces, implies that they were just conveying information second hand, with absolutely none of their own biases or thoughts present in the writing. But the only way that is possible is one-to-one copy and pasting the reports. As soon as you edit, remove, or add anything, you, personally, are affecting the writing with your opinion. This is one of the basics of journalism (closely tied in with the idea of primary, secondary etc. sources) , and it says a lot that a reporter in that big of an org could say something that obviously stupid and anti-journalistic but still believe it.
Yeah your comment is much better. I think you're still bound to get similar brain-wormed responses (you kind already did lol).
Under evil gommunism journalists are threatened with arrest if they publish stories that make the government look bad
the authorities react uncivilly in response
...
...
:shocked-pikachu:
It doesn't matter if it's "illegal" because your enemy is the one writing the rules.
I grew up about 40 miles away from there, in a neighboring county, it is exactly the kind of place where LE would disappear someone.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Journalism/comments/10xlllh/was_mistaken_for_media_by_environmental/j7zpnd4/
This exchange (featuring someone who might be from here?) featuring :brainworms: ( :funny-clown-hammer: :joker-troll: the guy is a journalist)
"Watch out! This guy who says media is owned by powerful interests must be some kind of RIGHT wing FREAK" :doomer:
The only people left in "prestigious" media institutions are these Mister Magoo motherfuckers who managed to stumble through the shambling façade of meritocracy through a minefield of falling pianos and anvils and come out the other end, completely oblivious, truly believing this is how the system operates.
Yeah our comrade on the bad site had him pegged like this as well. The reason they've never received pushback on their reporting is precisely because they're the kind of person who mocks as a right wing Q conspiracist anyone who suggests the media is a captured institution.
lmao I guess the Iraq war was a golden age of impartial journalism then
Based on what I have in my RES tags, the commenter who wrote the effortpost that cites Einstein has (or had) an account over here, but I don't think it's the same user name.
Also, real talk, what the hell is up with Reddit user accounts following that Markov chain-looking
[adjective]-[noun]-[three-or-four digit number]format? It always looks sketchy as fuck, and I assume a lot of them are either bots or PR firm/LEO sockpuppets.When you sign up for an account you are given the option to go with a username that was generated for you by reddit.
what the hell is up with Reddit user accounts...
IIRC that's the default format.
