Medical Conference Blog: August 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

Restrictions on Recording Medical Meetings

The organizers of most medical meetings allow members of the press to have unlimited access to their meetings. But every so often I'll run into a meeting where there are restrictions against photography (most frequently) and against audio recording (less frequently).

I think there's little justification for any of these restrictions; if reporters are allowed to be present, they should be allowed to do their jobs as long as they don't disrupt the meeting.

At the recent annual meeting of the American Psychological Association a member of the press office staff apparently attempted to enforce a silly rule against a reporter from Democracy Now!: a 10-minute limit on recording during the session. The APA was debating a resolution on the participation of psychologists in military torture.

Science writer Norman Bauman chronicled what happened in a post on the nasw-talk mailing list, which is maintained by the National Association of Science Writers. With Mr. Bauman's permission, I'm quoting his message in full:

Amy Goodman, broadcast producer of DemocracyNow!, had a showdown with the

American Psychological Association's PR department this weekend, when they

ordered her to stop recording a session about psychologists participating in

military torture.

She refused to stop, and the PR department threatened to call security.

Goodman publicly announced to the audience that the APA leadership was

refusing to let her record, and asked the members whether they wanted her to

continue recording. As you can hear on the recording, the audience

overwhelmingly wanted her to record, because they wanted their debate to be

disseminated to the public. Someone made a motion, and they voted to let her

continue recording.

The APA meeting this weekend in San Francisco debated a resolution, which an

APA committee had approved, on the participation of psychologists in

military interrogations. 6 members of the 10-member committee worked for the

military. Dissident members said that ethics code has a loophole which

permits torture -- if there is a conflict between the ethics code and a law

or military regulation, a psychologist can follow the law or regulation.

The APA PR department had limited Goodman's taping of the session to 10

minutes, and tried to stop her when she ran over 10 minutes.

The APA prohibited her from recording some sessions at all, but she recorded

them anyway.

The APA is the last medical professional organization to let its members

participate in torture. The American Medical Association and American

Psychiatric Association declared that it was unethical for their members to

participate in torture.

Here's the transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: Not long after the town hall meeting had begun, the APA's

public affairs officer approached Democracy Now! and told us to stop

filming. She said we could only tape ten minutes and that we had passed our

time limit. I got on the microphone and told the people gathered at the

meeting what was happening.

AMY GOODMAN: Excuse me, just [inaudible] a point of procedure. We're told

that reporters are only allowed to record for ten minutes, and Pamela

Willenz of the APA said that she will call security on us now, because we're

going to be recording for more than ten minutes. So I was wondering if there

could be any sense of the meeting, or a rationale, since this is a town hall

meeting, for not being allowed to record for more than ten minutes.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We want to vote.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: Can we vote to allow recording at the town hall

meeting? Can we all vote to allow recording?

AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: Can we vote to allow recording?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: We want the press to witness this.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: Can everyone who approves of allowing the reporters to

record please raise your hand?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: OK, folks, the recording will continue through the session

###

I think this is a good example of how to deal with organizations that won't

let you cover a legitimate news event of public importance.

I've been in situations like this, where people threated to have me

arrested, and I stood up to them. They backed down.

In the analysis of how the news media failed us in Iraq, one White House TV

reporter said that it's hard to stand up in the White House press room and

challenge the President of the United States.

Journalists have a privileged position in the U.S., because we have a role

set out for us in the Constitution. We can have a good time, and lots of

perks, writing interesting stories, but in exchange we have an obligation to

supply our readers with the information they need. A lot of journalists

failed their job, because they were too timid to stand up to authority when

it was their responsibility to do so. As a result 500,000 Iraqis died.

DemocracyNow! is broadcast (in New York, anyway) on the radio at 9am EST,

but you can see it on the Internet. Theyalso make a full transcript available in the afternoon. I recommend that everyone read the transcript or listen to it, and in particular listen to Goodman's confrontation with the APA.

The next time you have to stand your ground, you can remember how Goodman

did it.

I previously said that I think Goodman is the best interviewer in the U.S.,

since the demise of the Playboy Interview. Her best interview, I think, was

her interview with Bill Clinton . She was the only reporter I can think of who asked him about solid issues.

Goodman was once reporting on a peaceful demonstration in East Timor, when

the (U.S.-supported) military opened fire, killing several demonstrators,

and beat her and another reporter to the ground with rifle butts. So she

doesn't have any trouble standing up to Presidents of the United States. She

was in more combat than they were. [end of Norman Bauman's nasw-talk post]