Twitter to the rescue for a few student journalists
Student journalists tweet to Montreal police and end up getting released.
Five student journalists and photographers working for the The McGill Daily and Concordia University's The Link were arrested while covering Montreal’s student protests on Wednesday night.
Student journalist Riley Sparks told OpenFile Montreal:
We got caught up in a kettle and it was pretty surprising … The police, at that point, were telling people to disperse onto the sidewalk… We didn’t think that we would get arrested but the police just encircled the group pretty quickly.
Sparks told OpenFile he then called the Media relations line and realized the man on the other end of the phone was standing right beside him.
Because the students are not part of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec they were not able to get released. Student journalists are not issued a press card because they do not earn a living from the journalism work that they do.
However, they found another way around it. The students began tweeting to the police department @SPVM and using the hashtags #manifencours and #ggi. The police department got word, asked for the students location and after making a few calls, the student journalists were released.
Click here to see the exchange between the students and Montreal police.
Angelina King is a freelance journalist who works as a reporter for CTV News Channel in Toronto. She previously reported for CTV in her hometown of Saskatoon and is a graduate of Ryerson University's journalism program. Angelina has a special interest in court and justice reporting, but is always grateful to share a human interest story. You can reach her at: @angelinakCTV.