This Thursday, at 7:00PM we will be having a campaign meeting at Cafe Du Soleil which is located at the corner of Filmore and Waller St. As a mayoral candidate, I plan to run a campaign dedicated towards building a model for participatory democracy and I can use your help making it a reality.

We’ll be discussing general campaign strategy and how we can move forward to establish greater visibility and really reach out to the people of San Francisco so that they can become more involved in planning the future of our city. The next three months are going to be a lot of fun, but it’s also going to be a lot of work, and I know that our impact will be much greater if each of you get involved and lend a hand.

I had the great pleasure to attend the Josh Wolf party in San Francisco tonight. I am happy to report he was in great spirits — they may have locked him up but they didn’t break his spirit.

Unlike past prison release parties I’ve attended, nobody was buying shots and instead there was a great group of people out front who were catching him up on what has gone on at the intersection of the internet and journalism since he was locked up.

He had some great thoughts, follow me over the flip…

First, while he is doing three morning news appearances tomorrow, he felt uncomfortable with the press attention (almost shy). He said, “as a journalist, I’d rather cover the story than be the story.”

Which, of course, is why there will be an intense bidding war for his novel. While he admitted he was a slow hand writer since he had been taking a laptop to class since the 5th grade, he found an old typewriter in the prison law library…

His thoughts on prison life were reflective and funny. He joked that he owed credit for gaining 40 lbs. to Greg Anderson.

He had also heard on the inside that Frank Russo had been granted press credentials.

He’s a great guy and I really look forward to seeing what he does with his fame. He has some great ideas he was kicking around (I’ll let him notify you with what he decides) and I expect that we’ll see great things from him in the future.

Josh Wolf, a video blogger, has been in jail since August 1 (with a brief respite in September) for failing to turn over video out-takes from a G8-protest.  His story hasn’t made the big-time like Evil Judy Miller, but it’s something that is really important to me.

Tonight, Josh’s friends and family are holding a benefit for Josh at the House of Shields (39 New Montgomery, SF, CA 94105). More info here. Join me over the flip for background on the issue.

A little background, from a story out of Memphis about Josh’s mother:

During the protest, a policeman was injured. When federal prosecutors began to investigate the injury and dig into reports that somebody had set a bomb under a police car, the prosecutors asked Josh for all his unpublished video.

Josh said no. As a journalist, he argued, he had a right to keep his unpublished video and notes out of the public eye and away from a prosecutor.

The federal prosecutors continue to see it differently. They say Josh is defying a federal grand jury investigation and believe that by not sharing his video he is harboring those who may have committed a criminal act.

While California does have a shield law for journalists that allows them to protect their unpublished materials, notes and sources in most cases, Josh’s case is now in a federal jurisdiction. There is no national shield law for journalists.  (Memphis Commercial Appeal 1/21/07)

Why are we jailing journalists for their video? This is a question that is important for me, as I find myself shooting events enough that something might come up.  We need to address the issue of when there is a right to a shield. Mark Leno (D-SF), says that these issues should not be casusally brushed aside, “The continued imprisonment of blogger and journalist Josh Wolf by our Federal Government is a travesty of justice.  Their attempts to obtain his footage of a 2005 protest are clear transgressions of California’s Shield Law, which was intended to protect journalists from being held in contempt of court for refusing to disclose unpublished information. As this administration continues its assault on the freedom of the press, we must do everything we can to protect Mr. Wolf and other brave individuals who are sacrificing so much for the ideals that we hold dear. “