About last night.... Rant alert.... In all of my years I have never seen so many ‘photographers’ at an incident. There were conservatively 30 vehicles, probably close to twice that many ppl with cameras. @DaveMillsPhoto @LACoFDPIO
It was so much that firefighting operations were affected and resulted in a life safety issue. The Safety Officer, understandably so, shut the entire area down to media and photographers. It was a very fluid situation, action needed to be taken and was.
While that was a very frustrating situation for myself and other @lacofd photographers, I understand. This is an issue that is only getting worse and needs some real discussion. A FB page and a camera does not mean you are a photojournalist or media.
This is specifically covered in 409.5 which is what I am assuming these photogs are using to gain entry. This is actually more of an LE issue than a FD issue. LE should catch these ppl at the entry point and determine if they are legitimate.
If they have the proper credentials, let them in, if not, see ya.... Had that happened at the #LakeFire last night we might had a much different outcome. For my personal situation, I am a dept photographer and the reason we exist is so we can provide the dept with quality
photos and videos of incidents. We should be treated differently as we are not media. I’m hopeful that this rant will provoke thought and get the conversation started. I would like to hear your thoughts and comments.
