Committee to Protect Journalists, partners call for charges against New York journalist Stephanie Keith to be dropped

 Via Committee to Protect Journalists

June 21, 2023

District Attorney Alvin Bragg
New York County District Attorney’s Office
One Hogan Place
New York, NY, 10013

Dear District Attorney Bragg,

We, the undersigned press freedom and civil liberties organizations, write to ask that you drop the disorderly conduct charge (Section 240.20, Subsection 6) pending against photojournalist Stephanie Keith, who was documenting a vigil when she was unjustly arrested by New York City police on the evening of May 8, 2023. Her prosecution would set a harmful precedent of prosecuting reporters simply for doing their jobs and documenting matters of public importance.

Leading up to her arrest, Keith was photographing a vigil organized to commemorate the May 1 killing of Jordan Neely, a homeless man who was choked to death on a New York subway train. Keith had been documenting demonstrations around New York in the wake of Neely’s death, with some of her coverage published in Brooklyn Magazine.

Around 8 p.m., Keith was near the northwest corner of East Houston Street and Lafayette Street when NYPD Chief of Patrol John M. Chell can be seen in a video of the arrest grabbing Keith’s arm. Chell can be seen forcefully pushing her into two officers in jackets marked “NYPD Community Affairs,” while yelling “lock her up.” Keith— who was wearing a press badge and was holding a camera— can be heard saying “Please don’t.” The photojournalist was then handcuffed and taken to the 7th Precinct, and then the 9th, where she was issued a court summons.

Later that evening, Chell said during a press conference that Keith “interfered” with three arrests before officers arrested her. However, Keith was simply doing her job and photographing police action and that evening’s vigil. No video has been released showing any alleged interference.

We are gravely concerned by the charges facing Keith. All of the videos of Keith’s arrest show that she was behaving professionally and trying to photograph events, and do not show her interfering with the police. Keith is an award-winning photojournalist whose clients have included Getty Images, Reuters, The New York Times, and Bloomberg. This year, she was part of the New York Times team nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for their breaking news coverage of a fire in the Bronx. Keith was not at the vigil to participate in a protest or interfere with police but to perform the public service of documenting the news, as she’s been doing her entire career.

Our organizations document cases of press freedom violations both in the United States and globally. Our research shows that arresting reporters is a crude form of censorship: it stops journalists from documenting current events, and protracted legal proceedings to dismiss baseless charges create financial and time pressures for reporters. It is disappointing and concerning to see these tactics being deployed in New York City.

Furthermore, the prosecution of reporters in the United States is exceedingly rare, according to the non-partisan U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which maintains data on press freedom violations across the country. Prosecuting Keith would send a chilling message to journalists in New York City and beyond, and indicate to the wider public that New York City believes that members of the media can be prosecuted simply for doing their jobs.

We understand that your office does not usually take part in summons prosecutions, but we consider this to be an exceptional case. We urge you to dismiss the disorderly conduct charge against Keith and ensure that journalists working in New York City will not face punitive retaliatory measures from the city’s police.

Sincerely,

Committee to Protect Journalists

Freedom of the Press Foundation

New York Publishers Association

Coalition for Women in Journalism

National Press Photographers Association

Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

Reporters Without Borders

Online News Association

The Deadline Club, NYC Chapter, Society of Professional Journalists

National Coalition Against Censorship

Grant Baldwin's 2019 Pride Festival image featured: Officials in counties outside Charlotte censored LGBTQ+ content. Can they do that?

 Via The Charlotte Observer

August 18, 2022

The Gaston County manager ordered this photograph of two newlywed men kissing at the 2019 Charlotte Pride Parade & Festival pulled from a photography exhibit at the Gaston County Museum, according to a county statement and the photographer, Grant Baldwin/Grant Baldwin Photography

"Before the pandemic put a pause to the Queen City’s in-person festivities, Charlotte Pride hired local photojournalist Grant Baldwin to document its 2019 parade. Among the shots, Baldwin snapped a portrait of two men — Justin Colasacco and Bren Hipp — kissing in celebration just after getting engaged.

As a rainbow-festooned gaggle of cheers erupted behind them, Baldwin thought the shot would be perfect for the Gaston County Museum’s roundup of artistic and documentary photographs. Museum officials agreed initially. They accepted the photo and displayed it as part of the summer 2022 “Into the Darkroom” exhibit, Baldwin said. Ultimately, county manager Kim Eagle told museum staff to replace the photograph with one “more considerate of differing viewpoints in the community,” county spokesman Gaub said. It remains shelved, but the removal has sparked calls for more LGBTQ recognition in the county. It garnered praise for Baldwin and the couple elsewhere. The photo will take a place of honor in a New Mexico exhibit soon. “It’s reaffirmed in me that there’s still more work to be done to live up to the motto of Gastonia being an All-American city – live, work and play – when a subset of the population is not viewed as equals,” Charlotte Pride spokesman and Gastonia resident Clark Simon said. “So there’s more work to be done.”

Read more here

Grant Baldwin's photograph is featured in the exhibition "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism", on view through September 18, 2022.

Censorship Is a Missing Picture: Photojournalist Grant Baldwin discusses what we don't see

 Via  Charlotte Journalism Collaborate

Censorship Is a Missing Picture: Photojournalist Grant Baldwin discusses what we don't see

Grant Baldwin: 2019 Charlotte, North Carolina Pride Parade, August 18, 2019

What is censorship? How do we recognize when it is happening, and how do we address it? Please join local photojournalist Grant Baldwin to discuss his photographs, their impact, and his experience with censorship.

The Gaston County Manager ordered the removal of a photograph on display as part of an exhibit titled Into the Darkroom at the Gaston County Museum of Art and History. According to the Charlotte Observer, "LGBTQ equality advocates are demanding officials in Gaston County reverse their decision to remove a photo showing two men recently engaged, kissing, from a museum exhibit. The photograph, taken by Charlotte freelance photojournalist Grant Baldwin, shows Justin Colasacco and his husband Bren Hipp kissing after Colasacco dropped to one knee and proposed in front of the crowd at the 2019 Charlotte Pride Festival & Parade. They married Oct. 4, 2020." According to the Gaston Gazette, the Gaston County Manager claimed that the photograph was political advocacy and wanted Mr. Baldwin to replace it with something else. The photojournalist chose instead to leave the display spot on the wall empty to demonstrate that something was missing.

Grant Baldwin is an award-winning freelance photojournalist based in Charlotte NC who focuses on visual story telling. His work has appeared in multiple local and national news outlets. He recently won the North Carolina Press Association's 2020 Best Multimedia Project for Black Lives Matter Coverage. 

Please join the Charlotte Journalism Collaborate to discuss what censorship means in our community.

Grant Baldwin's photograph is featured in the current exhibit "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism", on view through September 18. Monroe Gallery hosted Nina Berman and David Butow for a discussion on July 22: Threats to Photojournalism".

Gaston County (North Carolina) forced museum to take down a photo of two men kissing; barred mention of Pride Month on its Facebook pages

 

Via Kara Fohner, The Gaston Gazette

Thu, July 7, 2022 

"Gaston County officials axed a social media post by the Gaston County Museum of Art and History that would have recognized Pride Month.

The decision came around a week before the county forced the museum to take down a photo of two men kissing, according to emails released by the county."

Article continues here

Related coverage here and here

The photograph was ordered removed from the Gaston County Museum exhibit "Into the Darkroom" photography, which, according to the museum, showcases "the evolution of photography, impacts of photography on human history, and highlights local photographers." It is now on exhibit at Monroe Gallery of Photography in the current exhibit "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism", on view through September 18, 2022

Podcast: Photojournalist Grant Balwin on Removal of LBGQT Picture from Exhibit

 

On episode 60 of the Nooze Hounds podcast, Ryan Pitkin talks to photojournalist Grant Baldwin about a story that made national headlines this week after one his photo of two men kissing was removed from an exhibit at the Gaston County Museum of Art & History at the request of Gaston County Manager Kim Eagle. 

Charlotte photojournalist Grant Baldwin discusses how he found himself at the center of a story that made national headlines this week after a photo he took of two men kissing was removed from an exhibit at a Gaston County history museum.

Listen here

This photograph is included in the Monroe Gallery of Photography exhibit "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism" July 1 - September 18

Photographs in the exhibition cover 20th- and 21st- century societal and political change, from the battles of World War II to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, from the frenzy of Presidential campaigns to the January 6 Insurrection on the United States Capitol. The exhibit includes a photograph from the 2019 Charlotte, North Carolina Gay Pride parade that the Gaston County manager ordered removed from a Gaston County museum exhibit on June 15, 2022.

"This is just two people protected under the Constitution, and it is seen as suddenly offensive. That's a huge problem."

 

This photo, shot by freelance photographer Grant Baldwin, was taken down from the Gaston County Museum at the direction of the county manager. 

(Photo: courtesy of Grant Baldwin Photography)

Via Gaston Gazette

June 15, 2022

Photo removed from Gaston County Museum to be displayed in Santa Fe gallery

Kara Fohner

The Gaston Gazette

A gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, will display the photograph that the Gaston County manager ordered removed from a museum exhibit.

The photograph, which features two men kissing after one of them proposed at a Charlotte Pride parade in 2019, will be featured in an exhibit titled "Imagine a World Without Photojournalism" at the Monroe Gallery of Photography. The exhibit runs from July 1 to Sept. 29.

Grant Baldwin, the photographer who shot the image, said that he received an email from the gallery owners, Sidney and Michelle Monroe, asking to use the photograph in the exhibit with plans to include an explanation about how it was removed from the photography exhibition at the Gaston County Museum of Art and History.

The photograph was removed from the Gaston County Museum at the order of County Manager Kim Eagle. The county said in a written statement that Eagle reviewed the photograph and told museum staff to work with the photographer to find an alternative photograph to display "that would be more considerate of differing viewpoints in the community." 

The county said that it finds it important that the items the museum shares be "informational without championing political views," according to a statement released by the county Tuesday.

Baldwin, who has been a freelance photojournalist for 11 years, has mixed feelings about the situation. He is sensitive to the impact that the news of the photo's removal may have had on LGBTQ+ individuals in Gaston County, but he is also excited that the photograph seems to have taken on a life of its own. 

"I just feel like, you know, on those occasions when a journalist gets to make something that takes on its own narrative and life, ... that's really great, that excites me. And I feel honored that I got to make a piece of work that's doing that," Baldwin said. "So, as a journalist, I'm excited about what's going on, and I don't mean that in any sort of disrespectful way to the challenges that this poses for the LGBTQ community. I'm not happy with what they're experiencing with this."

Michelle Monroe, one of the co-owners of the Monroe Gallery of Photography, said that she learned the photograph had been removed from the museum exhibit from media reports.

"I'm using the photo for several reasons, but it is also a wonderful photograph. We are a gallery, and you know, we don't just want a photograph with substance. We want a photograph that is well done and beautiful, and tells an important story," she said. "We actually have had other work that would represent the human civil rights of the LGBTQ and decided that we would switch out one of those for this, because this was so current and apparently so threatening that we wanted to champion it."

She said that in terms of the arc of history, some moments are signals, catalysts that ultimately have historical significance.

She said the removal of the photograph from the exhibit is a clear signal that history is moving in the wrong direction.

"This piece of art is simply a photograph, right?" she said. "This is just two people protected under the Constitution, and it is seen as suddenly offensive. That's a huge problem." 

Related Coverage

"It is our understanding that the photograph has already been sent to a gallery in Santa Fe, where the gallery owner, Michelle Monroe of Monroe Gallery of Photography, recognizes that it is a substantial photograph that tells an important story about human civil rights."  -Opinion, Gaston Gazette

N. Carolina county orders museum to remove photo showing same-sex couple kissing to celebrate marriage proposal

NC museum removes LGBTQ Pride photo, sparking outrage

Gaston County Museum pulls gay Pride photo

'It's surreal:' Man shocked his engagement photo at center of Gaston County controversy

This Day in History, June 4, 1989: Tiananmen Square

Jeff Widener

New York Times: Shanghai Market’s Echo of Tiananmen Date Sets Off Censors

New York Times Lens Blog: Behind the Scenes: A New Angle on History

Via ABC News: "China's internet censors have blocked words and phrases associated with yesterday's anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Key phrases relating to yesterday's date and expressions like "never forget" have been blocked by China's internet censors."

Via The Guardian: Chinese censors act to silence Tiananmen anniversary talk

Via BBC News: "China has detained political activists and placed others under increased surveillance in cities around the country to prevent them from marking the anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square on Monday."

Via VR Zone: In yet another crackdown on free speech, China has banned searches for terms relating to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, where hundreds of pro-democracy protesters were killed by government forces.

Forthcoming Exhibition: "People Get Ready: The Struggle For Human Rights"

"If you have the nerve to walk into the halls of Congress and show them the obscenity that is a child that must wash herself with poison every day, they will call you a child pornographer. They will call the police."

Obscenity: I Know It When I See It