According to Reporters Without Borders
Many journalists have found themselves being prevented from covering the movement's activities ever since it began on 17 September. Ordinary citizens, bloggers and netizens who provide information through online social networks have also been affected by this obstruction. More seriously, the New York Police Department treats a person as a journalist only if they have a press card that the NYPD itself issues according to its own criteria ( http://www.nyc.gov/... ).
Eligibility
First-time applicants should contact the Press Credentials office (above) before completing their application.
Applicants must be a member of the media who covers, in person, emergency, spot or breaking news events and/or public events of a non-emergency nature, where police, fire lines or other restrictions, limitations, or barriers established by the City of New York have been set up for security or crowd control purposes, within the City of New York; or covers, in person, events sponsored by the City of New York which are open to members of the press.
Applicants also must submit one or more articles, commentaries, books, photographs, videos, films or audios published or broadcast within the twenty–four (24) months immediately preceding the Press Card application, sufficient to show that the applicant covered in person six (6) or more events occurring on separate days .
Do the police really have the journalistic experience to determine who is a reporter?
"Since when is a police department equipped to determine who is and who is not a journalist?" Reporters Without Borders said. "Such restrictions can be used to block news and information of public interest, whether it is reported by the participants themselves or by professional journalists who are there just to do their job. This NYPD filtering violates the most elementary constitutional guarantees.
What guarantees you ask?
Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
We can't expect this to be acceptable:
- Natasha Lennard, a freelance journalist and contributor to a "New York Times" blog, was held for five hours in a police truck on 1 October because she did not have an NYPD press card. She was arrested along with 700 people during the Occupy Wall Street march across the Brooklyn Bridge. Kristen Gwynne of the AlterNet web-magazine suffered the same fate at the same place on the same day.