United States
Journalists face consequences for covering the Occupy protestsPosted Nov 14 2011
NEW YORK —Occupy Wall Street is an increasingly difficult story for journalists to cover, not only in New York where the movement originated, but in other U.S. cities as well.
When the movement began in September, the story was not covered by a majority of media outlets, according to The New York Observer. Citizen journalists served as the primary source of news and covered the protests via cell phones and social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
As protests spread nationally and globally, coverage, some of it sensational, increased. The Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy love stories, celebrity appearances and other angles circulated throughout the media.
Months into the protests, the media are still struggling how separate their operations from that of the protestors.
According to the International Press Institute, journalists covering the movement have been arrested more frequently while on the job. According to the report, journalists across the nation, not just New York, have been charged with disorderly conduct, trespassing and other offenses, even with press credentials.
WNET reporter John Farley was arrested while interviewing two women on Sept. 24 in New York City, an incident that marked the first-known arrest of a journalist covering the Occupy protests. Though Farley’s charges have been dropped, other journalists have not been as fortunate. Natasha Lenard from the New York Times and Kristen Gwynne, a freelancer for the online news magazine AlterNet, still face charges along with many other journalists covering the protests.
As the movement intensifies, the struggle of trying to define who is and who is not a journalist remains. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, journalists across the country have suffered attacks from police and demonstrators.