A while ago I attended a seminar held at a leading media law chambers on UK 'frontline' journalism - that is the reporting of events likely to involve public disorder such as, but not limited to, the recent actions against blood sports, GM crops, capitalism and animal laboratories. There were several issues discussed - one being that journalists (or the more inclusive term 'news gatherers') are usually held in the same regard by the authorities as the demonstrators. Allegedly each side either claims news gatherers are collecting information on behalf of the authorities or that demonstrators are posing as news gatherers to evade arrest. Of great concern to those attending was the number of cases of news gatherers being detained and so having their film or tapes confiscated and then being released without charge after their deadlines had passed. A concern was what could happen to news gatherers films, tapes, laptops, PDAs, digital cameras, phones etc. while in custody for they could contain evidence of crimes being committed, not only by the demonstrators but by the authorities, or might contain data that could be copied and stored for intelligence purposes. That happening would undermine the position of all news gatherers and in certain circumstances would endanger their lives.

Under the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), if the police believe that a news gatherer's notes, film or videotape or any other 'journalistic material' contain evidence of a crime and the news gatherer is not charged with a 'serious arrestable offence', the police have to apply to a circuit judge at a Crown Court to obtain it under 'special procedures'. Journalists can ask the judge to refuse the request to prevent revealing privileged information such as sources. The present law is extremely complex, hence the need for the seminar, and has yet to be fully tested against the subsequent human rights legislation but a basic assumption is that if a news gatherer is detained by the authorities but not charged, the authorities cannot freely examine their journalistic material. The likelihood of journalists suing for false arrest and the PACE legislation should deter fishing expeditions into a news gatherer's notes and films while they are detained but this apparently is not always the case. In one instance police officers detained news gatherers covering a demonstration and refused to acknowledge their status (even though the detainees made strenuous efforts to present their credentials) and refused to accept that their belongings were journalistic material and alleged they were demonstrators and their credentials were faked - despite the established methods of police verification. Other violations of special procedures have occurred while journalists were in custody without being charged but the defence was put that the journalistic material had been separated from the news gatherer during the disturbance and so its status could not be known.

I asked the question if simple labels on the equipment warning of its status could avoid this. I was surprised to learn that this had not been thought of before but after a discussion by the distinguished panel of media and human rights lawyers, including a QC, they urged the media to adopt the labels. The only certainty that labels would be effective would come from putting them to the test. Therefore, for the common good, I provide the label artwork here. The wording has been carefully written (with the previous caveat) to remove any doubt as to their purpose and cover as many applications as could be foreseen.