Why Are There No News Helicopters Over Ferguson?

One
of the strangest things about the tense situation in Ferguson,
Missouri, in which heavily armed cops, and now the national guard,
have clashed with protestors in the wake of the police shooting of
an unarmed teenager nine days ago, is that there have been no
overhead shots of the action. We’ve seen maps of the town, with
graphics explaining where the demonstrators are, and where the
police have gathered. But we’ve seen none of the context-setting
live aerial news photography that we typically see at major news
events.

There’s a reason for that. Last week, when the protests began,
the Federal Aviation Administration banned low-flying
vehicles—vehicles like news helicopters—below 3,000 feet over
Ferguson airspace, in order “to provide a safe environment for law
enforcement activities.” The no-fly-zone was created
at the request of local law enforcement. Yesterday, Missouri
Gov. Jay Nixon
renewed the ban, citing the same justification.

This isn’t really about police safety. What possible threat
could a news helicopter, circling hundreds or thousands of feet
above, be to the activities on the ground? If anything,
helicopters, which would block emergency vehicles, which wouldn’t
get in the way of cops or crowds, which would remain at a remove
from the action, would be safer than the rest of the media.

No, safety isn’t the issue. That’s not what this is about. It’s
about local law enforcement not wanting to be watched—and not
wanting media to capture a complete picture of the scene.

As it stands, media can’t always follow police off the main road
in Ferguson and into the side neighborhoods, where police have
sometimes pushed protestors, using tear gas in residential areas.
The media can’t show overhead images that give a full sense of how
occupied the main part of the town is. The media can’t show an
overhead shot of a column of riot cops advancing on a relatively
small protestors, which is what appears to have happened late last
night.

I say “appears” because, watching multiple news networks from my
home in Washington, D.C., it wasn’t possible to tell exactly what
was happening. A row of armed and armored law enforcement formed
up, some with shotguns drawn and pointed forward, and began to push
down the street while a man with a bullhorn ordered protestors to
disperse. On CNN, anchor Don Lemon attempted to describe what he
could see, but he couldn’t get access to the scene. And while it
was happening, press were being ordered back to their designated
areas, then told that they would also have to move. They weren’t
being allowed to watch, and report what they saw. 

The entire chaotic night, which featured more than 30 arrests,
gunshots, and heavy use of tear gas—including some that wafted into
the media area, causing national news correspondents to don gas
masks for their reporting—played out on TV in scattered and fuzzy
fashion. The overall action was never clear. We’d see something
happen in one part of town, then hear reports that some separate
conflict was occurring in another. But in many cases, neither
reporters nor camera crews could get there.

News helicopters would have made that possible. News helicopters
would let journalists and viewers follow the action, from place to
place, from eruption to eruption, as it happened, providing a
clearer, more coherent view than the ground-locked cameras that are
being used now. It’s hard to justify banning those images from
being recorded and shown. 

But banning their use is frustratingly consistent with the
bullying behavior we’ve seen from law enforcement against media in
Ferguson so far. Over the last week, we’ve seen clear
video evidence of reporters being arrested and
illegally ordered to stop filming, of cops threatening to

mace and shoot members of the media, of major news network
anchors being forcibly
pushed from their locations in the middle of live shots. It
keeps happening, even as the situation drags on. Last night,
Intercept reporter Ryan Devereaux was shot with
beanbags and
taken into custody.
On CNN, reporter Jake Tapper was struck by teargas.

At this point it seems fair to say that local law enforcement in
Ferguson don’t like the national press. Late last night, MSNBC
anchor Craig Melvin described a conversation with a law enforcement
official in which the official told Melvin that the police believed
that the media presence was “exacerbating”—Melvin’s word—the
situation. Melvin said the official indicated that they were
considering changing the way media are handled going forward.

Think about that for a minute. The cops apparently believe
the media is exacerbating the situation. They want to
manage the media presence. Not their own.

Let’s be fair. It’s not that the heavy media presence has no
effect. But the protests, which started immediately after the
shooting of Michael Brown two weekends ago, existed before the
media circus began—and the local cops showed up dressed for war.
That’s where the exacerbation began.

This is, of course, not a media story first and foremost. It’s a
story about people who are upset because a young unarmed man was
shot at least six times, and killed, by a police officer after
being stopped for jaywalking. And part of the reason they are upset
is that police have been so unwilling to come forth with
information—taking days to release the name of the officer involved
in the shooting, not releasing a full and detailed account of the
shooting itself.

The protestors in Ferguson want to know what happened. And the
people watching the protests want to know what’s happening. That’s
what the press is there for. But the cops seem irritated by the
presence of professional watchers, showing the world what’s
happening, and have intimidated them, restricted their access, and
shut down traditional points of view. They don’t want helicopters
flying overhead. They don’t really seem to like allowing media any
presence at all. It’s almost as if they don’t want a clear picture
of what’s happening, and what they’re doing, to emerge.