The National Press Photographers Association announced a campaign protesting the detention of Joshua Wolf, a freelance journalist who was jailed this week after refusing to turn over to a federal grand jury an unaired video of a demonstration in San Francisco.

Tony Overman, president of the NPPA, stood in a conference room at the Marriott Hotel holding his notebook, camera card and pen.

“These are my tools…to do my job as a journalist,” he said.

Leaders from various journalism organizations were present, saying the ruling disregarded a journalist’s ability to guard confidential sources and unpublished material.

Overman, pointing to his “tools,” said his job as a journalist was being compromised to become an aid for the government.

“They want the journalist to do the job for them,” he said. “This has a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.”

“This is an attempt by the federal government to make journalists an arm of law enforcement,” said David E. Carlson, president of the Society of Professional Journalists. He said this would not help the federal government in the long run, because journalists will naturally lose the public’s trust all together.

The ruling took place as journalism and mass communication educators met at the AEJMC Convention, which the speakers found to be ironic.

“As we have been convening here at this convention, the courts have been moving forward,” said Frank Fee, Jr., a member of the Professional Freedom and Responsibility Standing Committee of the AEJMC.

“The timing proved to be interesting,” Overman agreed.

The speakers, who also mentioned the cases of San Francisco Chronicle reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada who reported on grand jury findings in the BALCO investigation and of former New York Times Reporter Judith Miller, stressed the importance of a free press in the country.

“The key to a free society is a free flow of information,” said Julianne Newton, editor of Visual Communication Quarterly and associate professor in visual communication at the University of Oregon.

Newton said confidential sources are sometimes the only way to provide information to the public, and the legal system should not dare to violate a journalist’s right to use these sources.

“Don’t mess with the press,” she said with a determined look on her face.

There is presently no shield law protecting journalists at the federal level. Overman said the Joshua Wolf case should not have gone to the federal government in the first place.

“Such crimes would be a violation of state law,” Overman said.

One message was obvious during the press conference: Each speaker demanded Wolf be released from prison immediately.

The NPPA donated $500 to the Wolf case, and SPJ contributed $1000 with more on its way, according to Carlson.

“I suspect that we’ll be making a considerably larger donation to the Joshua Wolf case,” Carlson said.

Fee noted, however, that journalists have been put in similar positions in the past.

“While we have seen a number of these cases pop up … it is not something that is new,” Fee said. “This is a fight that has been going on for a long, long time.”

He said that journalists act as the watchdog and worried about the consequences that could arise when this role becomes blurred.

“We have at times forgotten that we have a watchdog role to play,” Fee said. “If we are an arm of the government, where is the watchdog role going to go?”