Unlawful reporting

By Editorial

A freshman student journalist at San Francisco State University was arrested two weeks ago when he photographed fellow students breaking into a car last fall.

Eighteen-year old Omar Vega was arraigned on misdemeanor charges of second-degree burglary and tampering with a vehicle.

Vega, his attorney and two San Francisco State journalism professors held a news conference on Feb. 11 to defend his actions, claiming that "(he) was doing exactly what a photojournalist should do. He was taking his camera and he was recording the world around him."

We believe Vega acted within his duty as a journalist to record history. If we intervene any time news is happening, then what does that mean to the profession of journalism? Are we reporters or interveners?

While it is unfortunate that student journalists don't have as much protection as "real" journalists, it is unnecessary to give them preferential treatment.

This division between who is and who is not a journalist is dangerous. Why? Because when there is a systematic way of distinguishing the press by the government, our first amendment rights are at risk.

This isn't the first time a student journalist was arrested. In March of 2003, a photographer from the Sacramento City College newspaper was arrested for rioting and blocking traffic while covering an anti-war protest in San Francisco.

We think the San Francisco District Attorney's office should drop the charges. Fifteen dollars and a few missing CDs from the burglarized car doesn't compare to the 5,725 violent crimes in 2003.

"Omar Vega was merely committing journalism," one of his attorneys said during the Friday press conference.

The only time when intervention is necessary is when a human life is at risk. Photographing a crime doesn't make you responsible for it.

But that's the risk journalists are willing to take in order to report news.