We won't stop the cameras

by Madeleine Lindh

Sometimes, the red light of a recording camera worries people.

The camera does not lie, distort or hide anything, and anyone who has had an embarrassing photo or video of themselves put up on Facebook or YouTube (is there anyone who hasn't?) knows how humiliating it is to have their worst moments captured and shown to the world.

The students who run the Arts London News this term are all third-year BA Journalism students. Over the past two years, we have been taught the rights and obligations that accompany our profession, and the most prominent of those is the right and obligation to report what we see - always in a fair and balanced way - but to report it nonetheless.

Yesterday, as I watched the drawn-out end of a student occupation of LCC's main lecture theatre, I got to witness just how well taught we have been by our tutors.

Over the course of the nearly three-hour long discussions between student protestors and college management, my camera team was repeatedly asked to switch off their cameras - to stop capturing and reporting what they saw.

I can back up what I'm saying: I've got it on camera. Because we didn't stop. We kept filming, and today we posted the report on our website.

The freedom of the press and freedom of expression are two journalistic rights that carry many journalistic obligations. What a camera captures should never be abused or misused - but what it does not capture can't be used at all.

Sometimes, the camera makes people nervous. That's too bad. We are the Arts London News, and we will not stop filming.