Jason N. Parkinson: Video Journalist

This week’s belated Report Digital covers most the month of library uploads and coverage.

As Climate Rush called the Spring Clean action outside DEFRA, that saw their security overstepping the mark on restricting filming in a public place, the 2008 storming of parliament went into the online archive.

More  2010 student protests also went into the online archive, this time the Student Siege of Millbank Tory Headquarters and the night scenes from December 9 on Whitehall.

More Egypt archive footage from the Battle of Cairo also went in.

Coverage this month covered the Leyton Marsh protest eviction, the DPAC Trafalgar Square blockade, Olympic Security Concerns and the Tottenham Court Road siege by far right BNP supporter.

More footage is available from reportdigital.co.uk

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

This week’s Report Digital weekly covers the last two weeks due to workloads. The online video library is now up and running. Please contact John Harris to gain your username and password.

The 9 December 2010 Student Fees protest have been added to the library. On 26 March 2012 injured student protestor Alfie Meadows faced trial for violent Disorder at Kingston Crown Court. Meadows underwent emergency brain surgery after being struck no  the head with police baton during the 2010 protest.

In March London pollution was recorded hitting high levels and a smog cloud was visible across London.

In preparation for the Olympics, on 29 March 2012 the Met police started Operation Trafalgar in the West End, “the shop window of the whole of London”.

A large fire at Star Lane in East London damaged power cables and cut power supplies to nearly 90,000 people on 5 April. Staff at local businesses around the area were evacuated until the fire was brought under control.

More footage is available from reportdigital.co.uk at info@reportdigital.co.uk

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

Footage shot during the electrical storm over East London on Saturday 23 April 2011.

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

Please contact Report Digital to access this material and the extensive six-year video archive.

A year has passed since the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest oil disaster in history.

In August 2010, five months after, I travelled across four states with photographer Jess Hurd, documenting the environmental and social impact, not just of the oil spill, but also the dispersant chemicals used to “clean” up the oil. The footage from that trip became the film report Gulf.

One year on and the effect on the environment and the communities of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida by both oil and dispersant continues, as the BBC report The Monster Under The Water catalogues.

© Jason N. Parkinson/reportdigital.co.uk

Please contact Report Digital to access this material and the extensive six-year video archive.

21 September 2010: Oil could still be seen washing ashore following the previous day’s oil spill from what was reported as an aging sea vessel. About 500 litres of oil leaked from the old ship.

Today, at 8am, local council workers began the clean-up operation.

(c) Jason N. Parkinson 2010. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com

>Stills, video, print (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Video: Dr. Riki Ott – The BP Oil Spill

Marine Toxicologist and Exxon Valdez survivor Dr. Riki Ott, PhD, talks about her experiences from the Valdez oil disaster and uncovers the BP cover-up in the Gulf of Mexico.

Dr. Riki Ott blog here.

(c) Jason N. Parkinson 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com

>
Stills, video, print (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Pelicans take flight from oil booms off Grand Isle coast, Louisiana

If you ask anyone from BP, or from the various authorities along the US Gulf coast enacted to tackle the oil disaster, the reply you will get is everything is fine. Move along, nothing to see here. The oil has gone and the sea is fine. And stop photographing those dead fish.

Now, if you ask anyone else, anyone, the reply you will get is we are being lied to. They [BP] sunk the oil, killing the bottom of the food chain and the dispersants and fumes from burned oil are slowly killing everything else. That has been the response from everyone one I have met, from bar staff to boat people, to tourists who come to look one last time at the Gulf before it is totally destroyed.

Beach closed sign at Bay St. Louis, Mississipi

As BP scales back the clean-up operation, declaring most of the oil has gone – sunk, skimmed, burned or evaporated – more and more people are turning up sick. The US news outlets are reporting that some of the clean-up workers (as many as 300 at this point) are suffering symptoms – those symptoms include sore throats, coughs, headaches, blocked sinuses, burning eyes, bleeding ears, rashes, blisters, welts and disruption to the nervous system and respiratory system. One fisherman described how since being heavily exposed to the dispersant they had an increased irritability on top of losing a majority of their lung capacity.

A truck returns oil booms inland after BP downsize the clean-up

But it is not just the clean-up crews, ordinary members of the public across the four Gulf States are getting sick, some of them having no contact with Gulf water. Even as far inland as New Orleans people have recounted in recent days how the smell of oil was thick in the air. And with it came the headaches and sore throats.

A tropical storm hits land near Biloxi, Mississipi

If fear of the fish, the sea and the air was not enough, people also fear the rain and what it contains. This is bad, as hurricane season has just started and torrential downpours, tropical storms and worse are commonplace along the Gulf coast, an addition and unwanted concern for those about to remember Katrina five years on.

(c) Jason N. Parkinson 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com

>Stills, video, print (c) 2009 Jason N. Parkinson. All Rights Reserved.

Film: The Great Climate Swoop

Saturday 17 October 2009: The Great Climate Swoop descended on the Ratcliffe coal-fired power station in Nottingham with the intention of shutting it down.

Using direct action the perimetre fences were breached and pulled down on many occasions, and protestors entered the site, despite the heavy police presence.

52 people were arrested that day. One protestor and three police officers were reported injured, one seriously.

All material on this blog – stills, video and print – is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com

>
Stills, video, print (c) 2009 Jason N. Parkinson. All Rights Reserved.

Video – Backheath Climate Camp: Swoop & Protests

Wednesday 26 August 2009 saw the 2009 Climate Camp “Swoop” on to Blackheath in South London. The camp was set up for a week of discussions and workshops to tackle climate change and a series of protests took to the streets of the capital, targeting banks, public relations firms and energy companies.

Protest targets included Barclays Bank headquarters – who provided nearly £6bn in loans to fund coal-related industries – London City Airport – which is due to massively increase the number of daily flights – Royal Bank of Scotland – one of the largest investors into new carbon initiatives – Edelman Pr – the “greenwash” merchants for energy giant E-On – and British Petroleum (BP).

One noticeable change was the low level policing of the protests and camp, as opposed to the previous year at Kingsnorth in Kent, which led to the Guardian investigation on how protestors and journalists were under surveillance.

But it seemed with the police out of sight, underlying frustrations from certain individuals manifested themselves into hatred of the media. Not just the mainstream media, but anyone with a press card and a camera.

And with little to no regard for the police surveillance camera watching everyone on the camp, nor any concern as to why the police felt they could stay away and not have to worry about large scale disorder, in less than a week two photojournalists were assaulted, outside the camp and away from the Climate Camp media policy. Because these two journalists had complained about the Climate Camp media policy being a breach of press freedom, some of the arguments that came back seemed keen to point this out, starting the comments usually with, I am not condoning violence, but…

The answer to the police response of course is that surveillance was the openly admitted favoured tool for the state this year. Take also into account the Forward Intelligence Teams have probably got more data than they can manage on the environmental movement and must know everyone by face, even when they are masked up.

Plus, the obvious fact, as one Climate Camper pointed out, if the police don’t steam into arrest protestors, violence is minimal, if not non-existant, thus many media outlets will ignore the story. A clever move on the part of the state, making the protests a non-story.

But it wasn’t just the press who complained about this year’s Climate Camp. The Whitechapel Anarchist Group (WAG) also put “pen to paper” to show its distain.

I myself embarked on a social stereotype study, appearing one day at the camp in my usual work clothing, shirt, jeans, green waistcoat with enough pockets to hold all my accessories at hand and was stopped every few minutes by campers rolling out the media guidelines, despite having a minder and knowing a good third of the camp from the work I have done over the years. After several incidents like this you can imagine it gets a bit boring.

The next day I arrived, same clothing, but I left my ear and nose ring in – my other piercings don’t come out so easily – I wondered around on my own for ten minutes, camera out, then was challenged by a camper.

“Are you a journalist?” he asked.

“No.” I said.

“You look like a journalist.” he said.

“How many journalists do you know with a nose ring?” I pointed out.

“Oh, right. Of course. Sorry,” and he left me be after adding I must be telling the truth because I had holes in my jeans.

It was on this day I also learned a Climate Camp photographer, and a member of the National Union of Journalists, had told my colleagues “Climate Camp is more important than press freedom”. Something I’m sure Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Mugabe would keenly agree with.

Then I learned this photographer spends most of their time away from the camp doing advertising jobs, for the likes of certain car companies, and Nestlé, whose track record includes the deaths of thousands of African babies – they didn’t inform all those mothers that powdered milk needs a clean water supply – and more recently the alleged assassinations of unionised workers.

Climate Camp itself came across as a success. The protests hit their targets, caused some disruption to the business running and the issues were pushed that bit further, with an estimated 5000 people attending the camp over the week . The most impressive part was the “swoop” day, seeing everything come together and all the logistics of the camp arriving, one truck after another.

All material on this blog – stills, video and print – is (c) Jason N. Parkinson 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the AUTHOR for access to any material and the extensive five-year video archive.

jasonnparkinson@gmail.com