Buried in an account of the removal of the protesters’ camp from the grounds of the New Zealand Parliament was a fundamental reason why professional journalism must continue to exist.
New Zealand Herald political reporter Michael Neilson was there last Wednesday when police moved on the camp and its occupants. He took the following day to reflect on events and in Friday’s edition he said: “And so I was there again among the protesters, with a handful of other journalists, as police looked set to clear the site once and for all, to bear witness as best we could.”
He went on to describe what he saw. He bore witness.
His account was, as much as possible, dispassionate. If the actions and words of the protesters tended to condemn them, be in on their heads. He recounted each stage of the historic event without resort to loaded adjectives or emotional hype.
He was measured in his descriptions and, where his account appeared dramatic it was simply reflecting what occurred. For example, when he said “Boom” he was attempting to bring home to the reader the raw sensation of a hearing a gas cylinder explode in close proximity. When he quoted an unnamed protester – “Let’s burn down the Law School – it’s made of wood” – he was prefacing the act that did, in fact, attempt to incinerate one of the country’s most historic buildings. When the woman next to him screamed “Burn it all!” parts of the camp were already on fire.
What Neilson saw did not reflect well on those who had occupied Parliament’s grounds for three weeks but, had the police repeated the sort of tactics that were used during the Springbok tour, he and his colleagues would have been there to see and report it. Instead, they were able to report that there were no baton charges. They were present, however, when the police fired sponge bullets into the crowd when escalating violence threatened. That they reported.
George Block matched Neilson’s role on the Stuff website and in its newspapers. His account of the operation from within the ranks of the protesters took a similarly neutral approach but, again, the protesters condemned themselves by their actions, including threats against him and the two photographers accompanying him.
Violence immediately erupted as protesters leapt over the hedge to join the fray on the lawn. It was all on.
Police extensively used pepper spray to push back protesters before the line of officers began the first of several successful charges down Molesworth St, quickly reaching the Backbencher pub.
The level of violence escalated. Protesters began throwing bottles and other projectiles at police, and carrying lines of pipe and timber up to the lines to use as weapons.
By 3.30pm police had control of half of the core camp on the lawn.
Protesters threw constant volleys of projectiles at police and some lit tents on fire as they retreated. Others threw whatever they could find, including gas bottles, on the fires, one of which engulfed the playground and badly damaged a slide. “If we can’t have it, they can’t have it,” a protester said.
A line of police advanced onto the forecourt of Parliament near a wall covered with chalk murals written by protesters, including some messages of police, love and non-violence. Several officers were injured as they became isolated and were charged at by protesters throwing projectiles, and police were forced to beat a retreat. But within 10 minutes police had regrouped and forced protesters down the steps.
These textual accounts provided a chronology of events and helped readers gain a sense of what happened throughout the course of the day. However, it was the visual record that bore witness in a way that words cannot convey. Only photographs and moving images could accurately convey the rage that had been fomented over the preceding 22 days. Live on TVNZ, the image of a man carrying a brick in each hand, pacing back and forth before lobbing them over the riot shields into the police ranks, sheeted home that some had come to Wellington intent on violence. So, too, did the front page of the Waikato Times: Police, firefighters, a wall of fire, and the Beehive in the background.
Photographic and video gear make media easily identified targets, Block and Stuff photographer David Unwin were chased down Molesworth Street by a small agitated group of protesters, threatening to “smash” them. They grabbed Unwin’s camera and tried to wrench it off him. They failed and his published pictures, along with images from Braden Fastier, showed the raw emotions and actions in the midst of the crowd.
Radio also captured the immediacy of the situation with live crosses throughout the day characterised by the often-repeated phrase “ What I can see…”. NewstalkZB’s Mike Hosking, of course, stayed true to form in using events to lambast the government although he had no truck with the protesters’ tactics. Then again, he doesn’t claim to bear witness, although he might think he knows how to run the country.
The Battle at the Beehive, as The Press dubbed it, was important in a New Zealand context and it required journalists to fulfil that witness role. Greater importance attaches to that function, however, in providing an accurate account of the ruin that Vladimir Putin is visiting upon Ukraine.
God only know how the disaster in Europe will play out and whether the Russian president – or any who carry out his murderous wishes – will be held to account. Nonetheless, it is vital that the world know what is being wrought on the Ukrainian people.
Propaganda machines are working overtime in tit-for-tat battles over the invasion of Ukraine, fought largely on social media. Sometimes it is bizarre: A fake CNN screen grab doing the rounds purports to show Hollywood action man Steven Seagal (a supporter of Putin and a Russian special envoy in the United States) with the Russian military in Ukraine. The image is from one of his not-very-good movies. And sometimes it is not the Russians pushing fake news: A blurry video claiming to show a Ukrainian girl confronting a Russian soldier has generated 12 million views on TikTok when, in fact, it is a Palestinian girl filmed in 2012.
In the age of social media and digital manipulation, the witnessing role of journalists is all the more important because they have a responsibility not only to report what they see but also to ensure that they know what they are actually looking at.
They have witnessed harrowing sights in Ukraine and in the states to which more than a million people have fled. And they have documented the Kremlin’s crackdown on those of its citizens who dared to protest against the war.
Networks and newspapers have carried footage and images of civilian areas being hit by artillery, rockets and (allegedly) cluster bombs. There has been footage of defiant Ukrainian protesters being shot in the street. Some of that coverage came from Ukrainian citizens trying to document the atrocities committed in the unprovoked attack on their country. A key component of the witnessing role in those situations is for skilled journalists to use their knowledge and digital tools to confirm the authenticity of the material before broadcast or publication.
Other coverage has been provided by news crews from a host of countries. Much of the reporting has been based in the relatively safe city of Lviv (70 km east of the Polish border), where Newshub’s European correspondent Lisette Reymer and cameraman Dan Pannett have based themselves and from where they have reported on stoic defenders and the results of the invasion. Others are outside Ukraine’s borders to witness the tide of humanity fleeing the war and to record their stories. TVNZ Europe correspondent Daniel Faitaua is in Romania. Still others, like Kiwi freelance journalist Tom Mutch, were in Kyiv as the perimeter grew ever tighter.
Sadly, there is more suffering and even greater damage to property and the fabric of Ukrainian society to come. And journalists will die in their attempts to tell the story of the invasion. Already a Ukrainian cameraman has been killed in the rocket attack on a Kyiv television mast.
The celebrated American journalist Pete Hamill, paying tribute to journalists killed while covering conflict, said they were the people chosen by the tribe to carry the torch to the back of the cave and tell the others what is there in the darkness.
Certainly, that is the role of journalists in Ukraine, but it was also the task given to reporters and visual journalists who covered the Battle at the Beehive. By shining a light, they helped our understanding of what unfolded.
Yes, there will be those who swear from under their tinfoil hats that the police brutalised those who did no more than exercise their right to peaceful protest. However, the words and pictures will tell another story.
And, despite Vladimir Putin’s determination to push a false narrative and keep his own people in the dark, the witness bearers in Ukraine will continue to record what happens in the country his forces have invaded.
The coverage of Putin’s ‘special military operation’ will mobilise world opinion and just may provide evidence for a later reckoning, as happened in the Balkans. In Bosnia, photojournalist Ron Haviv photographed a Serbian Volunteer Guard summarily executing a man and two women before kicking the corpses. His pictures formed part of the international war crimes tribunal indictment of the commander of the Guards. Željko Ražnatović, also known as Arkan, was assassinated before he could be brought to justice. Perhaps history will repeat itself.