Reporters Say Police Denied Access to Protest Site - NYTimes.com

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/reporters-say-police-denied-access-to-protest-site/?smid=tw-mediadecoder&seid=auto

excerpt:

"Media Decoder - Behind the Scenes, Between the Lines

November 15, 2011, 11:06 am

Reporters Say Police Denied Access to Protest Site

By BRIAN STELTER and AL BAKER

4:26 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.”

Lawyer: Prosecutors won't drop charges against RIT student-journalist Jonathan Foster | Democrat and Chronicle |

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20111118/NEWS01/111180348/Occupy-Rochester-Photographer-RIT?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Local%20News

excerpt:

Prosecutors won't drop charges against RIT student-journalist

Written by Jon Hand Staff writer

Trespassing charges against a Rochester Institute of Technology student — arrested while covering the Occupy Rochester demonstration on behalf of the school's student magazine — will not be dismissed without opposition by the Monroe County District Attorney's Office.

The lawyer for journalism student Jonathan Foster said he asked prosecutors to dismiss the charges in court on Thursday, noting that Foster was a journalist merely covering the Oct. 29 demonstration during which about 30 others were charged with violating the city's municipal code barring people from being in Washington Square Park past 11 p.m.

Foster's lawyer, Mickey H. Osterreicher, who is general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, said he was surprised that the prosecutors did not support the dismissal.

Instead, a return date of Dec. 14 was scheduled to file "opposing papers."

"I feel that it really chills free press when this kind of thing happens," Osterreicher said.