Giannoulias Campaign Aide Manhandles Videographer

by Larry O'Connor

More rough tactics were on display last night in Washington DC as a hotheaded campaign workerfor the Alexi Giannoulias campaign for Senator of Illinois confronted a man with a video camera at a fundraising event.


The event took place on the rooftop of an apartment building in Washington DC which is a public space for residents of the building and their guests.  The unidentified camera man has stated that he was, in fact, the guest of a friend of his who lives in the building.  Even if one stipulates that the campaign had the right to the section of the roof that was set aside for the event, the way in which the situation was handled certainly calls into question the judgement and temperment of the people candidate Giannoulias surrounds himself with.

As seen earlier this week in the outrageous response by Rep. Bob Etheridge to two college students with cameras who asked him if he supported “The Obama Agenda”, Democrats seem more and more reactionary when they see a person with a video camera near by.  In the words of a seasoned DC insider:  ”The heat is on.”

In light of these recent events, the National Republican Senate Committee has issued guidelines to their candidates and their staffs in how best to handle these situations.

As a general matter, so long as a videographer is on public property and is not actively disrupting an event, he or she is within his or her rights to continue filming. While other individuals, including campaign staffers, are free to engage in polite conversation with a videographer, they are not free to beeither verbally abusive to or make physical contact with a videographer. Doing so potentially exposesboth the individuals engaged in such contact and the campaign to liability for assault and battery


Memo on Videographers –

Will the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee issue similar guidelines?

As Mike Flynn stated on Monday, the Long Hot Summer has begun and candidates and incumbents will be scrutinized closer than ever by the watchful eye of citizen journalists.  It is curious that the party that invented “Video Tracking” and gave us the “Macaca Moment” is now expressing sanctimonious outrage, hostility and aggression toward seemingly innocuous citizens with video cameras.


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Posted Jun 17th 2010 at 4:45 pm in Congress, Politics, State Politics | 170 Comments