When I worked as a reporter for Foreign Correspondent, I shot some stories in Africa with the ABC's London-based cameraman, a bloke who had spent much of his career working for television news. He was shortish, and squarish, and as solid as the proverbial brick convenience. And he loved nothing better than diving into a media scrum.

During a frustrating two weeks in Libya, the only opportunity we got to shoot some pictures of Muammar Gaddafi came unexpectedly, as we were making our way through a maze of tunnels to the playing area of a vast soccer stadium, where the great man was due to give one of his interminable orations. Suddenly, Gaddafi himself came around the corner, surrounded by security men and half a dozen Libyan camera crews. Our man shouldered his camera, and stood like a rock in the passageway. The mob parted around him like a river, leaving him looking up the Brother Leader's nostrils. Then, as the other crews jostled and the security men barked, he walked imperturbably backwards in front of Gaddafi.

When we timed it later, the shot lasted an astonishing two minutes, almost every frame of it useable.

News cameramen are a special breed. They need to be immune to embarrassment or shame. Are they blocking the view of people who've queued for hours for a glimpse of a celebrity? Tough. They've got a job to do. Are the subjects of their attention unwilling, sheltering their faces behind coats or umbrellas? Tough. Sooner or later they'll emerge, and the camera will be running. The job is to get the shot.

Reporters, too, not infrequently find themselves involved in media scrums. Few of them enjoy it. Most would far prefer to have a story to themselves. But when the news editor calls, and the subject of that day's story is holed up in a house, or emerging from a court, or due to arrive on the next flight, their job is to be there: in case the subject talks, in case he or she takes questions, in case - unthinkably - others get a story and your newspaper or TV news bulletin misses out.

It's a competitive, hard-nosed trade (one hesitates, in this instance, to call it a profession) that leaves little room for squeamishness. Reporters or cameramen who return to the newsroom without the shot or the quote, saying "she really didn't want to be photographed", "he said he wanted to be left alone", "they asked us not to film", will soon find themselves sidelined when the next big, competitive story hits.

Yet what the hapless subjects on the other side of the camera lens experience, especially if they find themselves at the centre of a story through no fault of their own, can be shattering, upsetting, and often infuriating. That they react, at times, aggressively, may be unwise, but should hardly come as a surprise.

Nine cameraman Simon Fuller has lost his job because he called the father of a young man accused of taking part in a riot - a father who himself has been a blameless citizen of Australia for twenty years - a 'f***ing terrorist'. That, of course, was inexcusable. But, as the footage that we ran on Media Watch last week showed, it was the culmination of an increasingly heated confrontation that had lasted for minutes, as Fuller doggedly persisted in trying to get a clean shot of the father and son, and Gad Amr pleaded with him to stop. Again and again, Mr Amr said "Please go away!" Again and again, Fuller responded, "I'm just doing my job".

It's a culture clash with no easy resolution. Some weeks ago, Media Watch featured a similar confrontation that took place in Israel. Nicole McCabe is one of the Australians whose passport details were appropriated and used by a member of the group who assassinated Palestinian militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

Ms McCabe and her Israeli husband had given an interview late on the night the story broke to News Ltd journalist David Murray. But then she refused to let him take a photograph.

To Ms McCabe, whose name, and date of birth, and passport number were now public property, all she had left of her identity was what she looked like. She didn't want her face plastered all over the world's media. She explained that to Murray and his photographer. Her decision seems reasonable enough to me.

But The Australian's columnist Mark Day, writing in defence of his profession, took a different view. The media had a picture of the impostor who had used McCabe's passport details. "Is it not reasonable to display to the public the doctored picture alongside the person's real picture? Of course it is. That's the nub of the news."

What Ms McCabe thought about it was, apparently, beside the point. By becoming a story, through no fault of her own, she'd surrendered the right to choose.

The next morning, she and her husband were pursued by a media pack intent on getting a quote and a picture. In the forefront was the photographer who had been refused the night before.

Ms McCabe was six months pregnant. Her husband was infuriated. He reacted aggressively. He pushed, and he threatened, and, one reporter claimed, drove his car straight at her.

The reporters - who included the ABC's Anne Barker, and The Australian's John Lyons, both fine and experienced journalists - were outraged. Media Watch was told, in effect, "we were just doing our job". And Mark Day opined:

"This unpleasantness could have been avoided if McCabe continued on the path she began. She told her story and could have consented to a photograph which was, in my view, a thoroughly legitimate request... The media is a hungry beast. That's why, when you find yourself in its voracious path, it's often best to feed it.'"

Sage advice, no doubt. But innocent 'victims' of the news cycle should have a right to say 'no'. Though the public may consume the 'news' that emerges from these encounters, it won't often miss what it doesn't get. The shot or the quote that emerges from the fracas - "I've nothing to say!" - "please leave me alone!" - is hardly of earth-shattering significance.

The photograph that News Ltd finally ran of Ms McCabe, looking distressed as she peered backward from her doorway, was unflattering and inappropriate. And on the rare occasions that the public sees the ugly reality of a media pack in full cry, as Simon Fuller has discovered, it sides overwhelmingly with the quarry, and against the hounds.

But I'm not holding my breath, waiting for anything to change.

NOTE: Since writing this, Media Watch has received an eloquent email from a veteran cameraman who has worked for a commercial television news service for 25 years. He was reacting to views that I expressed to Crikey on Tuesday, and that I've elaborated above. He disagrees with my view that there is anything different about the moral compass, or the 'shamelessness', of TV news cameramen. As a corrective, let me quote this paragraph from the email:

"I have never been schooled to muscle into a fight in order to get the best footage. I have never been trained not to take no for an answer. Neither am I shameless. In fact, I regard myself as perfectly normal too. My moral compass is completely sound and my ethics and integrity remain intact. And I say this on behalf of many of my peers as well. Of course there are cameramen whose conduct and ethics are wrong and I have witnessed behaviour that could be described as shonky at best, disgraceful at worst. But there are many cameramen (and journalists as well ) who have stood up to chiefs of staff or news directors and refused to put themselves in situations where ethics are compromised or people are misrepresented. ... Certainly not me. Had I been in Simon Fuller's shoes at the courthouse that day, I would have got my 20-second shot of the accused from a reasonable distance and then walked away. And so would many of the guys I work with. I don't want conflict. I don't want to provoke anyone. I certainly don't enjoy anyone pushing the camera back at me, nor do I want to put myself, my sound assistant and my journalist at risk for the sake of a shot."

I should make it clear that I don't think most cameramen would have behaved as Simon Fuller did. But I do maintain that you need a fairly thick skin to do the job effectively. And I do think that journalists in general, just 'doing their job', frequently behave in ways that the public would find unacceptable.

Jonathan Holmes is the presenter of ABC TV's Media Watch.