★★★★★ 0/5

Claim: TV crew left photographer in gutter

A photographer bashed at the Oakleigh riots says a film crew from Highway Patrol filmed him in the gutter and left without helping.

6
Leave a comment

On Friday night in south-east Melbourne, a riot broke out at a Bob Jane T Mart store after fans of Easternats car-racing were furious at an event being cancelled.

It has since received wide coverage in the media.

Amongst the reports of violence, a Fairfax photographer bashed at the scene said a crew filming the Seven series Highway Patrol, with a policeman, jumped out of the car, filmed him in the gutter and left without helping.

Source: The Age

6 Responses

  2. I am the cameraman in question! We were 500m away when they started smashing windows, held back by the police for out safty, we work with the police and do what they say! We did film the photographer when he was up and talking to our policeman whom we were filming with. At no time did I see him in a gutter or being attacked, if we did the 2 officers with us would have gone to his aid, no questions asked! The only other Camerman there was a freelance ABC cameraman who isn’t under police direction and was free to film what he wants, where he wants. The photographer may have confused us, Highway Patrol, with the freelance ABC cameraman! But people feel free to jump to conclusions, speculate and make stupid comments when you weren’t there and don’t know what you are talking about! It’s that same pack mentality that caused this whole ugly incident in the first place!

  5. Hmm, and since when have these photographers and journos ever helped anyone themselves?
    They just go and take photos and photos but never seem to offer any help themselves.

    Now, when it is one of them who is photographed, they complain that they were not helped.

  6. Without going into specifics, this is not the first time I have learned of Seven camera crews being stage-managed by the police that are escorting them, and totally ignoring the human side of what is happening in front of them.

    In the previous case related to me a couple of years ago by a close relative who witnessed it first-hand, the police officers escorting/accompanying the camera crew (pre Highway Patrol btw) threatened innocent bystanders with arrest when they objected to being videotaped for commercial TV exploitation, and to the officers’ overreaction to what was, basically, a depressed drunk man doing nobody any harm.

    Just like with “Cops” in the US, police media units have a lot bigger influence on these so-called “reality” shows than the shows themselves would have you believe.

Leave a Reply