Hi JD,

Thanks for giving us the guest post slot. We've been hearing lots of great feedback on the post, so it seems to be hitting a chord.

I think the real challenge we're pondering – and which you put your finger on in terms of how WITNESS or an NPR can react – is how to translate norms/standards etc that we take for granted, or are at least 'professionalized' in the human rights, documentary, news-gathering world – and translate them into an environment where people may not have been exposed to those norms, thought about them much, or have the resources to respond if there is retaliation. We're going to be putting out some suggestions in the coming months on practical steps we think can be taken that can engage technology providers, as well as broader citizen media publics than the usual suspects in the human rights/documentary world.

On the ethics questions, from a documentary perspective, there are some interesting observations on how documentary-makers wrestle with these issues in the new Honest Truths report from Center for Social Media at American U: http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/ethics

Thanks,
Sam

There's no easy answer. Journalists confront these issues all the time, and it generally comes back to the question of informed consent. NPR recently aired an interview with a young woman in China who was critical of government authorities and you could tell that they advised her repeatedly that her comments could have repercussions from the authorities. At that point, your obligation is to support her bravery, but also to muster all the leverage at your disposal should the authorities retaliate.

I've occasionally seen producers pixelate the faces of demonstrators, but this diminishes the video's impact and detracts from its authenticity.

I suspect it's impossible to make a one-size-fits-all rule for these situations. But WITNESS is to be congratulated for bringing these issues to public light because many people in the public, with no ties to a human rights organization, will face similar questions in the years to come.