This is the twelfth and final chapter of the series “Hidden in Plain Sight: Media Workers for Social Change.” For the last two years Peter M published profiles and photos of people who have taken career paths outside of the media mainstream, at the service of the community around them.

This profile is of Jose Manuel Martinez, whose creative life has been story telling. As a recording artist he has worked in Rock, Latin Rock and Salsa. Now having just completed a Master’s degree in Education at Stanford University, he is an English teacher, relating to young people how stories can empower, and the ways they can bring people together.

Martinez said: “I started writing at a very, very young age. As a matter of fact, I was writing short stories for third and fourth graders when I was in the sixth grade. My principal at P.S. 115 in New York City had me on contract—my mom always brings this up—to produce a few stories a month, and he was really proud, you know. I’ve always had that type of imagination.”

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See Blurbs for All 12 Stories in "Hidden in Plain Sight"

Dear Directors:

The Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists Freedom of Information Committee condemns the wrongful treatment of journalists by BART police during the September 8, 2011 protest at Powell Station. The Committee requests acknowledgment of BART police’s error, assurances that such actions will never be taken again, and new training for officers to ensure that their interactions with the press remain appropriate and lawful.

The actions of BART police on September 8 are both serious and numerous and should be addressed by the Board.

Most disturbing are the allegations of David Morse, a veteran Indybay.org reporter who goes by the nom de plume “Dave Id.” Mr. Morse alleges that as he was newsgathering, BART Deputy Police Chief Dan Hartwig singled him out for immediate arrest by pointing in his direction and saying, “him.”

Mr. Morse was the first of several people to be arrested in such a manner that night. He believes that he was singled out because of numerous articles critical of BART police that he has published since the January 1, 2009 killing of Oscar Grant. Mr. Morse has reported that Deputy Chief Hartwig knows that he is a journalist, and he also notes that upon being isolated from the main group of detainees he was asked by another officer whether he was “Dave Id.” If Mr. Morse is correct that he was targeted for arrest based on articles critical of BART police, such action would constitute a grave violation of the First Amendment.

Additionally, BART police unnecessarily detained reporters regardless of whether they displayed police or non-police press credentials. In certain cases, BART police refused to release journalists even after being informed that they were present to document the protest on behalf of media outlets. For example, San Francisco Chronicle reporter Vivian Ho was placed in handcuffs after officers were made aware that she was present at the demonstration solely in her capacity as a journalist.

After roughly 30 minutes, BART police made the decision to release journalists who possessed San Francisco Police Department credentials. However, these journalists were not allowed to remain on the scene. And, in a highly unusual move, BART police directed SFPD officers to confiscate these journalists’ credentials, an unnecessary and seemingly punitive action that SFPD media relations director Troy Dangerfield later described as an error that violated SFPD protocol.

Read More | Indybay Journalist Arrested at #NoFare BART Protest in Powell Street Station | League of Pissed Off Voters with #NoFare Protest Arrestee Dave Id of Indybay & Rebecca Bowe of SFBG | A Talk Show With Arrested Protesters From The NoFare Protest At Powell BART Station

See Also: BART Police Oversight Pushed Along in Assembly Committee on Public Safety Hearing, 9/27/11 | BART Board Meeting Police-Related Matters - No Mobile Phone Policy, Indybay Arrest, 9/22/11

Previous Related Indybay Feature: No Justice No BART and Allies Call for "Spare the Fare" Protest in Powell Street BART

In this eleventh installment in the series “Hidden in Plain Sight” Peter M writes about Maureen Gosling. Gosling is a documentary filmmaker who worked for many years with Les Blank of Flower Films. On her own she made the award-winning film Blossoms of Fire, which deals with a community in the Mexican Isthmus were women play a special role. She is currently working on a film about fabric hand-dyed by women in Mali that is becoming a cultural phenomenon.

"The media is very powerful," Gosling said in a TV interview, "and people are finding it easier to make their own stories now, which I think is great. Because a lot of times as a girl, as a young woman growing up, you wonder if your story is interesting or if you have anything to say. It’s really important to be able to see your own face on television. Because we are affected by what we see on television, it has a big impact. It can make you feel good about yourself, or it can make you feel really bad about yourself. We see the same stories over and over again on television, in the movies. And there’s room for your story. The world needs your story."

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Elizabeth Gonzalez is the subject of the tenth profile in this series by Indybay contributor Peter M. Gonzalez is a veteran of the innovative magazine and community service organization called Silicon Valley Debug. She now works with New America Media as a marketer to Spanish-speaking communities, promoting health and social welfare. Peter and she met because of a photo he took of her at a demonstration in 2006. She talks about changes she has been through since the picture was taken.

"Gonzalez was one of the crew that launched Debug early in the Silicon Valley 'boom.' It started for her when she found employment for a summer on an assembly line making modems. The hours at the job were long—it seemed to her she would just work and sleep and go back to work. 'All I had to do was press a button all day long,' she said, 'it just sucked the whole life out of you.' The supervisors talked down to the workers, who were mostly Latin American and Asian, threatening to send them back to their home countries if they didn’t shape up, she said. Because they were temporary workers, hired from agencies, they could be let go at the drop of a hat."

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On February 22nd, Indybay reporter Mark Burdett filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in a federal civil rights lawsuit stemming from his 2004 arrest for "jaywalking" while covering an antiwar protest in San Francisco. The story was featured on the February 23rd episode of The Colbert Report.

In a series of recent civil rights cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has permitted the "custodial arrest" of people for petty offenses. In an October 2010 ruling on Burdett's appeal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals carried this precedent to the extreme, finding that police have absolute probable cause to arrest a credentialed reporter for "jaywalking," while standing in a parking turnout, on a street blocked to traffic, during an antiwar march, filming the violent arrest of a protester.

Read More | The Colbert Report Video

Previous Related Indybay Feature: Ninth Circuit Decision Limits Freedom of the Press

Geoffrey King is the subject of this ninth chapter of “Media Workers for Social Change,” a series of profiles with photographs by Peter M. King went to community college, then to Berkeley, and then to Stanford Law School. He is now a public interest attorney serving the community of media workers. He is also a self-taught professional photographer of social protest. He talks about his work in representing a wronged Indybay reporter, and a night he spent photographing an Oscar Grant demonstration.

“Geoffrey King’s only formal education in photography was a photo unit in a vocational class in crime scene investigation he took in community college. ‘We had to get a picture of something blurry with a slow shutter speed,’ King said. Going out with his camera, he saw a campus policewoman about to pull away in a patrol car, approached her, explained his assignment, and asked if he could take a photo of her in motion. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Do I have a right to?’ King asked. ‘You don’t have any rights when it comes to taking pictures of me!’ she responded.”

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On January 20th, a meeting on the USF campus was held in protest of the sudden and unannounced shutdown of 34-year-old college station KUSF the day before. A $3.75 million sale of the station's FCC license occurred January 18th, in a secret deal of which almost nobody at the station had prior knowledge.

Shocked and outraged station personnel, supporters, students, a media studies professor, and other media made up close to 500 people who rallied outside the packed auditorium. Those in the hall demanded explanations and a better resolution from unapologetic school president Reverend Steven A. Privett, who made the deal. Reverend Privett was willing to address the outraged group for over an hour and a half, but he just kept repeating lines like “cost-benefit” decisions for students and saying that he had no obligation to the larger community. He hid behind the secretive “non-disclosure agreement," often chiding speakers for their level of passion. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi attended.

Station personnel are speaking out on KPOO and KALX radio shows as well as in other media. Organizing information can be found at kusf-archives.org. Supporters plan to attend the Board of Supervisors meeting January 25th at 1pm at City Hall.

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In this eighth chapter of “Media Workers for Social Change” Peter M profiles journalist JR Valrey. Valrey covers the Black neighborhoods in the Bay Area, addressing issues relevant to community members, and informing people on the outside as to what is going on. His forte is coverage of political prisoners and police issues. He is host of "The Block Report" on KPFA and other stations and works for The San Francisco Bay View. He is also Minister of Information for the Prisoners of Conscience Committee.

"'My most vivid memory is when Huey Newton died,' Valrey told me. Newton was shot and killed on the street in 1989 in West Oakland, not far from the apartment where Valrey and I met for our interview. 'My grandmother made a point to tell us, her grandchildren, to not believe the slander, that Huey Newton was somebody who represented for our people, and that we needed to always remember that, and always remember that our family stood on the side of Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party, and not the police.'”

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