IF HE CAME RACING THROUGH YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD YOU'D BE OUT THERE CHEERING THE COPS ON:

France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence (Peter Sayer, 3/06/07, Yahoo)

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991. The officers' acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles.

Um...isn't that backwards? The King anniversary is an ideal time for proponents of such a ban--which we aren't--since the video in that case merely inflamed passions with visual lies. Recall that jurors, who were shown the earliest portions of the tape in the same detail that the media showed the latter bits, determined that King warranted the thrashing. Lou Cannon, the fine Reagan biographer, wrote an excellent study of the case: Official Negligence.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 6, 2007 8:33 PM