A Threat to Democracy - and the Planet
Arrest of Journalists and Filmmakers Covering the Dakota Pipeline is a Threat to Democracy
Josh Fox | October 24, 2016
Award-winning filmmaker Josh Fox joins Democracy Now! to discuss the arrest of fellow filmmaker Deia Schlosberg, who is charged with three felonies for filming an act of civil disobedience in which climate activists manually turned off the safety valves to stop the flow of tar sands oil through pipelines spanning the U.S. and Canada.
"These people are not accessories to the crime, they are the media. This is a First Amendment, constitutionally protected activity. And it isyou know, I mean, its partwhat I worry about is that in the most brutally repressive regimes throughout history, one of the first things that those tyrannical despots do is throw the press in jail, is to make sure that there is a lockdown on things that they dont want reported."
"...its clear that the mainstream media will not report on Standing Rock, and they will not report on these pipeline battles. It is infuriating, and it is an abdication of duty to watch the Kardashians and other nonsense, which is called news, when we have revolts happening all across the United States of America, not just in Standing Rock, not just in North Dakota, but in New York state and in Florida and West Virginia and Seattle. And, you know, there is a very active movement against fossil fuels, because people dont want fossil fuels anymore, and therefore they have to suppress the reporting on it. It makes me terrified for the future of our profession. We need to be able to operate as documentarians. We need to be able to operate as independent media that are allowed to bring these stories to the public. And its constitutionally protected. And we wont rest."
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/10/24/josh_fox_arrest_of_journalists_and