Did KSTP go too far in covering TIZA flap?

Drama ensued Monday morning as Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy officials attempted to take cameras away from a reporting crew from KSTP that showed up to cover a report from the Minnesota Department of Education on the charter school. The report was commissioned to determine whether the school had run afoul of church and state concerns after a column by conservative Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten.

The KSTP camera crew walked onto school grounds after school officials failed to return the station’s request to film at the school, KSTP reporters said. The Inver Grove Heights school contends that KSTP did not ask permission to film on school property, and in fact told police that they were not allowed. “I asked police to tell those unidentified individuals to leave the property,” school director Asad Zaman told KARE-11. KARE did request permission to film at the school, was allowed on school grounds and was filming when the incident occurred.

While KSTP contends that its crew was not told to stay off school property, Inver Grove Heights Police Officer Steve Her told KARE that he did tell KSTP to stay off school property before the confrontation with school officials.

Inver Grove Heights police are considering trespassing charges against the station and assault charges against school officials.

David Brauer at MinnPost makes an important observation: KSTP did not have permission to film minors at the school, but did it anyway.

“The video shows that just before the attack, KSTP was taping school kids,” Brauer notes. “A reporter calls it an ‘innocent start,’ but most journalists get releases when photographing school kids — and that’s at typical schools; this one’s been battered by repeated threats. To me, KSTP was within its rights but acting stupid; TIZA wildly overreacted. No heroes here.”

KSTP was instrumental in propping up Kersten’s source for her column on the school: Republican and education activist Amanda Getz. Getz’s testimony to Kersten and KSTP was directly contradicted by the Minnesota Department of Education findings released on Monday.