Comment from Scott Mayman
At the time of writing this, there were 170 documented examples of police turning on the media stemming from the protest action in the United States.
While there’ve been responses to police assaults on journalists and camera crews, I’ve not heard any proactive action being taken by management at media organisations to protect their staff.
Don’t get me wrong – we need the ability for reporters to be “at the scene” but what happened to management’s “Duty of Care”?
Who could forget the horror as we saw a U.S. reporter and her cameraman being gunned down “Live on Television” in 2015 by a disgruntled former colleague. There was no security for the pair. No one was looking out for them. It’s a scene that concerns me because it could be repeated here in Australia.
Donald Trump’s view of the media doesn’t make things any easier. In my opinion, Instead of being a leader, he’s the only President to “sway the people” by spreading his own fake news. “The Donald” has brought division at a time when a leader should be uniting a nation. Peace is not on his agenda.
It grieves me to see his actions and his tweets are actually fuelling the flames of division with police turning on the media and the potential for more media staff being assaulted. Today, ask yourself – does your management have a proactive safety plan when you’re out in the field? How do you feel about your welfare at your own workplace today?
About the Author
Scott Mayman is an award winning radio presenter and journalist – both in Australia and the United States. Scott is currently host of the Brekky Show on Radio 97 / FM104.1, Gold Coast as well as a CBS News Correspondent. He’s also the Director of his own company “Radio and News Partnerships”.
Subscribe to the radioinfo daily flash briefing podcast on these platforms: Acast, Apple iTunes Podcasts, Podtail, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, or wherever you get your podcasts.
... if the reporter is dumb enough to put themselves in harms way by getting closer to the action than is really necessary (no doubt to enhance their chances of a Walkley) rather than standing at a safe distance, then management should be ordering them not to do so, not encourage them in their stupidity by arranging what would ultimately be ineffective "security" ...