Following a four-month legal battle, a B.C. Supreme Court judge has granted a request by the Vancouver police to have the city’s news outlets turn over photographs taken during the 2011 Stanley Cup Riots. Despite the media’s assertion that the production orders threatened their journalistic independence, The Globe and Mail, The Vancouver Sun, The Vancouver Province and a number of television stations were compelled to release thousands of published and unpublished images to the Vancouver police department on Monday, January 23.
Media lawyer Dan Burnett told the judge on behalf of the six media outlets that the orders were “overbroad” and “unreasonable” and threatened to turn journalists into “evidence-gatherers.”
Further details on this ruling can be found in the latest edition of The Press and The Courts: Volume 30 (2011) Issue Number 6.
