The New York Times sent an angry letter to the New York Police Department about this video of cops roughing up and blocking photojournalist Robert Stolarik from shooting arrests of protestors at the at the World Financial Center. The NYPD responds with… something?
All that’s known is that an official response has been made, but the details remain vague. Stolarik says:
“Yes, I believe The New York Times got a response from the NYPD press office. They said they were ‘looking into disciplinary measures’ for one of the officers. But I don’t know which officer … if it was the one who pushed me down the stairs, the one who backed me up with a baton, or the one who blocked all my shots.”
Watch the obnoxious footage above. Here’s a highlight from the New York Times VP and assistant general counsel George Freeman:
“It seemed pretty clear from the video that the Times freelance photographer was being intentionally blocked by the police officer who was kind of bobbing and weaving to keep him from taking photographs.”
Photojournalists beware: Even if you do manage to score a press pass through a Kafkaesque trial, you still have to worry about the uniformed interference.
Police departments all over the country are doing their best to supress coverage of arrests of peaceful #Occupy protestors. Whether it was the shooting of Scott Olson in Oakland or hassling photographers in New York, there is a systematic attempt by police commanders and cops on the street to ignore not just the 1st Amendment but their department's own guidelines for dealing with the news media.
As Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalism said last night on a public affairs program in Canada, "Repressive governments are very afraid of the power of information … When you see large numbers of journalists being carted off to jail, it means that governments are under siege (and) feel so threatened." This explains why nearly 200 working journalists and live streamers have been detained by police at various #Occupy locations.
In defending citizen journalists, Simon said “Every time a new technology emerges, there is a debate as to whether (it is) journalism … There is no question that blogs and social media can become a viable and growing means by which journalists do their work. It has allowed citizens and informal journalists to participate in the process of gathering news and information.”