This is unbelievable; the police are targeting members of the media who are covering Occupy sites around the country. This is a blatant attempt by the 1% to prevent the public from watching and supporting the protests, as well as witnessing police brutality against the protesters. Thanks to The Nation for reporting on this:
Early Tuesday morning, the New York Police Department forcibly evacuated Zuccotti Park, epicenter of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In what appears to have been a premeditated and coordinated effort to block media coverage of the raid, many journalists said they were barred from reporting the police action. Ten reporters were arrested, another was put in a choke hold and numerous others described extensive police harassment, including, perhaps ironically, a New York Post scribe who told the New York Times’s Brian Stelter that he’d been “roughed up.”
Lindsey Christ, of local cable-news channel NY1, said on-air that “the police took over, they kept everybody out and they wouldn’t let media in. It was very planned.” One of the few reporters in the park when the police moved in, Josh Harkinson of Mother Jones, was roughly dragged out of the park and was told by police that reporters had to stay in a “press pen”.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said authorities kept the media away “to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect members of the press.” But according to the New York Times, one journalist told a police officer “I’m press!” and the officer just responded “Not tonight.”
This type of police response is typical nationwide. Police harassment of the press has been reported during Occupy protests in Chicago, Denver, Oakland, Portland, Salt Lake City, St. Louis and beyond. Josh Stearns of Free Press has been tracking media arrests and reports that ten New York City journalists were arrested on Tuesday (including reporters from the Daily News, NPR and AP), which brings the total since OWS started to twenty-six around the country. Stearns adds: “Just as bad was the purposeful efforts by police to interfere with coverage and roughing up of numerous journalists.”
Read the rest of the story at The Nation, including action steps to help prevent this interference with freedom of the press.
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