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NY -- Reporters Say Police Denied Access to Protest Site
Hopefully some of these reporters will wake up to what this country is becoming.
November 15, 2011, 11:06 am
Reporters Say Police Denied Access to Protest Site
By BRIAN STELTER
3:00 p.m. | Updated As New York City police cleared the Occupy Wall Street campsite in Zuccotti Park early Tuesday morning, many journalists were blocked from observing and interviewing protesters. Some called it a “media blackout” and said in interviews that they believed that the police efforts were a deliberate attempt to tamp down coverage of the operation.
The city blog Gothamist put it this way: “The NYPD Didn’t Want You To See Occupy Wall Street Get Evicted.”
As a result, much of the early video of the police operation was from the vantage point of the protesters. Videos that were live-streamed on the Web and uploaded to YouTube were picked up by television networks and broadcast on Tuesday morning.
At a news conference after the park was cleared Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg defended the police behavior, saying that the media was kept away “to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect members of the press.”
Some members of the media said they were shoved by the police. As the police approached the park they did not distinguish between protesters and members of the press, said Lindsey Christ, a reporter for NY1, a local cable news channel. “Those 20 minutes were some of the scariest of my life,” she said.
Ms. Christ said that police officers took a New York Post reporter standing near her and “threw him in a choke-hold.”
That reporter and two photographers with him declined to speak on the record because they are freelance workers and lack some of the job protections of full-time employees. But as they sipped coffee on Tuesday morning in Foley Square, where some of the protesters had regrouped, they expressed surprise at the extent of what they described as police suppression of the press.
A freelance journalist working for NPR, Julie Walker, was briefly detained during the operation. A journalist working for DNAInfo.com, Patrick Hedlund, was also arrested.
Michael Ventura, the managing editor of DNAInfo.com, told The New York Observer that Mr. Hedlund, who was wearing a press credential at the time, was “doing his job and was arrested for that.”
Other journalists wrote on Twitter that they came close to being arrested in the early morning hours.
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said he saw “nobody” who was manhandled.
He said reporters were allowed on the borders of Zuccotti Park, but not in its interior. That was for safety, he said, comparing it to the way the police set up a perimeter for the press around crime scenes and calamitous events.
“They were told we were going to start making arrests and they left the interior of the park and if you see from the coverage, everyone got their shot,” he said, referring to video and photographs shown online and on television. “So I don’t think that was an issue. If you see from the coverage people got their shot.”
Andrew Katz, a journalism student at Columbia University who was writing for the Web site The Brooklyn Ink, said that the police “wouldn’t let us get anywhere near Zuccotti.”
Mr. Katz said that at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Street, three blocks from the park, some police officers told him to stand on the sidewalk while others told him to stand on the street. “I was shoved by police on the sidewalk and then off the sidewalk,” he said. “Where was I supposed to go? It led to confusion among the press.”
Rosie Gray, a writer for The Village Voice, recounted telling a police officer, “I’m press!” She said the officer responded, “Not tonight.”
The reporters, police and protesters were all brought together at least once, though — Ms. Christ observed members of all three groups “waiting quietly in line for the bathroom at Starbucks” around 7 a.m.
Later in the morning, even when there were media reports that Zuccotti Park was reopening, reporters had a hard time getting access to the area. Debra Alfarone, a reporter at WPIX, the CW affiliate in New York City, wrote on Twitter around 8:45 a.m., “And we got kicked out of #zuccottipark again.”
At midday, as protesters tried to claim a vacant lot owned by a church, a confrontation ensued and at least four journalists were led away in plastic handcuffs. The City Room blog of The New York Times said that the journalists included a reporter and a photographer from The Associated Press, a reporter from The Daily News and a photographer from DNAInfo.
Reporters Say Police Denied Access to Protest Site
By BRIAN STELTER
3:00 p.m. | Updated As New York City police cleared the Occupy Wall Street campsite in Zuccotti Park early Tuesday morning, many journalists were blocked from observing and interviewing protesters. Some called it a “media blackout” and said in interviews that they believed that the police efforts were a deliberate attempt to tamp down coverage of the operation.
The city blog Gothamist put it this way: “The NYPD Didn’t Want You To See Occupy Wall Street Get Evicted.”
As a result, much of the early video of the police operation was from the vantage point of the protesters. Videos that were live-streamed on the Web and uploaded to YouTube were picked up by television networks and broadcast on Tuesday morning.
At a news conference after the park was cleared Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg defended the police behavior, saying that the media was kept away “to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect members of the press.”
Some members of the media said they were shoved by the police. As the police approached the park they did not distinguish between protesters and members of the press, said Lindsey Christ, a reporter for NY1, a local cable news channel. “Those 20 minutes were some of the scariest of my life,” she said.
Ms. Christ said that police officers took a New York Post reporter standing near her and “threw him in a choke-hold.”
That reporter and two photographers with him declined to speak on the record because they are freelance workers and lack some of the job protections of full-time employees. But as they sipped coffee on Tuesday morning in Foley Square, where some of the protesters had regrouped, they expressed surprise at the extent of what they described as police suppression of the press.
A freelance journalist working for NPR, Julie Walker, was briefly detained during the operation. A journalist working for DNAInfo.com, Patrick Hedlund, was also arrested.
Michael Ventura, the managing editor of DNAInfo.com, told The New York Observer that Mr. Hedlund, who was wearing a press credential at the time, was “doing his job and was arrested for that.”
Other journalists wrote on Twitter that they came close to being arrested in the early morning hours.
Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said he saw “nobody” who was manhandled.
He said reporters were allowed on the borders of Zuccotti Park, but not in its interior. That was for safety, he said, comparing it to the way the police set up a perimeter for the press around crime scenes and calamitous events.
“They were told we were going to start making arrests and they left the interior of the park and if you see from the coverage, everyone got their shot,” he said, referring to video and photographs shown online and on television. “So I don’t think that was an issue. If you see from the coverage people got their shot.”
Andrew Katz, a journalism student at Columbia University who was writing for the Web site The Brooklyn Ink, said that the police “wouldn’t let us get anywhere near Zuccotti.”
Mr. Katz said that at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Street, three blocks from the park, some police officers told him to stand on the sidewalk while others told him to stand on the street. “I was shoved by police on the sidewalk and then off the sidewalk,” he said. “Where was I supposed to go? It led to confusion among the press.”
Rosie Gray, a writer for The Village Voice, recounted telling a police officer, “I’m press!” She said the officer responded, “Not tonight.”
The reporters, police and protesters were all brought together at least once, though — Ms. Christ observed members of all three groups “waiting quietly in line for the bathroom at Starbucks” around 7 a.m.
Later in the morning, even when there were media reports that Zuccotti Park was reopening, reporters had a hard time getting access to the area. Debra Alfarone, a reporter at WPIX, the CW affiliate in New York City, wrote on Twitter around 8:45 a.m., “And we got kicked out of #zuccottipark again.”
At midday, as protesters tried to claim a vacant lot owned by a church, a confrontation ensued and at least four journalists were led away in plastic handcuffs. The City Room blog of The New York Times said that the journalists included a reporter and a photographer from The Associated Press, a reporter from The Daily News and a photographer from DNAInfo.
For more information:
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011...
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IMC Network
By Sally Kohn
Published November 15, 2011
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/11/15/cant-evict-idea/
The “occupy” camps were just a tactic. The 99% is a growing movement whose time has come.
In the middle of the night, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and hundreds of police in full riot gear crept up on peacefully sleeping American citizens early Tuesday morning and evicted them from Occupy Wall Street, reportedly using pepper spray and aggressive force.
You can physically push protesters off public land but there’s no way the powers that be can push out the idea taking hold in America’s conscience --- that it is unacceptable for our economy to systematically benefit the rich while making it harder and harder for hardworking Americans to survive.
Think what you will about the protests. Maybe they weren’t your cup of tea. But do know that our forefathers who destroyed private property by dumping crates of tea into the Boston Harbor were not initially praised as heroes but attacked as criminals. But we look back with deep gratitude that they stood up to the fundamental inequity and injustice of the British monarchy and its stranglehold over the colonies. Without their bold action, we would not be a nation.
Such protests often look prettier with the distance of history. Standing up to the status quo is, by definition, counter-cultural in the moment -- even if those doing the standing up have the support of the majority of Americans.
Senior citizens struggling to get by on eroding Social Security benefits and laid off construction workers and public teachers may not have all been sleeping under tarps in lower Manhattan, but millions were cheering the protesters on.
Even many among the 1%, many who work on Wall Street, signaled their support. After all, you’d have to be blind or willfully ignorant to think that our current economy is working as it should for working people.
Over the last generation, worker productivity has gone up as have corporate profits and CEO pay packages -- but the wages for ordinary working folks, the people doing the work, have fallen. That’s not capitalism. That’s corruption.
To be clear, officials argued the eviction was necessary due to an “increasing health and fire safety hazard” in Zuccotti Park, where the protesters were encamped.
But such concerns were already being addressed. A volunteer team of doctors descended on the camp last week to give flu shots and prevent other infections from spreading and protesters had set up their own internal monitoring systems to prevent sexual assault and other violence.
Incidentally, it’s worth noting that there’s been a recent spate of rape and attempted rape cases across New York City in the last several months to which many argue the police response has been lax at best, which casts questions on the claim the police merely wanted to help the protesters.
More significantly, the last time officials used the argument of needing to clean the park as a pretense for eviction, the protesters thoroughly scrubbed the place themselves. It’s clear the only thing Bloomberg really wants to protect is his political power and the power of his economic cohort.
Ironically, it’s possible the police did the 99% movement a favor and the eviction is a blessing in disguise. It’s getting darn cold in New York City and elsewhere and the occupy camps take a lot of energy to maintain.
Perhaps now organizers can focus on new tactics, engaging the broad majority of Americans across the country who support the movement and want ways to be involved.
From the conversations on the ground, I don’t expect any one new tactic will emerge right away but, over the coming days, expect to see a flurry of new activity as the 99% movement looks for its next incarnation. And, just as many Tea Party activists have supported the 99% movement because of shared opposition to TARP and Wall Street influence over Washington, you may find yourself inspired to join in as well.
Our system is broken. Government serves the interest of big business and big business only serves the interest of a very few, wealthy elites. It’s time to make our economy and our politics work for working people.
Time will tell if the end of occupy camps is upon us, but without a doubt, the larger movement for opportunity in America is just beginning. You can evict hundreds of protesters, but you cannot evict an idea whose time has come.
---------------
Sally Kohn is a political commentator and grassroots strategist. You can find her on Twitter or at Movement Vision.org.