Well, to talk more about the protests, the reporter is Natasha Leonard.
She is with us in the studio.
She's a former freelancer at The New York Times, who helped The Times cover the initial
Occupy protests.
She was arrested during the Brooklyn Bridge protests while reporting on the event.
She no longer freelances for The Times, and recently wrote a piece for Salon.com titled
Why I Quit the Mainstream Media.
Well, Natasha, why don't you tell us what happened?
Tell us about your experiences on the Brooklyn Bridge.
One of the largest mass protests in U.S. history, more than 700 people arrested.
You were swept up as well?
Absolutely.
So, I was there that day, live reporting for The Times, and at the base of the bridge
saw a huge surge of hundreds of people at the entrance taking the bridge, many of whom
I believe thought they would be permitted because the police did not stop people and
indeed seem to walk along the bridge with protesters on the roadway.
I followed the surge of people, that's where the story was, and about a third of the way
in, as many people have heard by now, the police stopped us and then began a, you know,
customary mass arrest of 700 people, who now all will probably go to evidentiary trial,
having pleaded not guilty to any illegal action.
You showed your credential?
I showed my press credential.
I had a New York Times identification card, but not an NYPD press card, but as has happened
during the eviction a couple of nights ago, press are routinely arrested now in protests
and the credentials, or not credentials, don't seem to matter.
Freedom of the press is very much under threat in these protests, in my view.
But then you became the target of a campaign by Andrew Breitbart and some other notorious
now conservative talk show folks, you talk about that?
Absolutely.
I spoke at a panel at the radical bookstore Blue Stockings in New York's Lower East Side,
talking about strategy and politics of the left with relation to Occupy Wall Street.
And at that time was no longer, you know, routinely freelancing for the New York Times,
but nonetheless, because of my link to the Times from my arrest, Breitbart found a video—reporter
with Breitbart's website—found a video of my panel discussion in which I quite ardently
showed support for the experimental nature of Occupy Wall Street.
And they used that to decry me as a non-objective journalist.
And as I wrote in Ceylon this week, I'm not an objective journalist.
I, like many hundreds, thousands, millions of people across the country, am quite appalled
by the current state of inequality that the system we're living under has created and
would only want to speak in that capacity, has forced.
After they targeted you, the Times said you would not be writing for them?
They released a statement in response to questions from Politico, who followed up the target—not
targeting me, but questioned the Times about it.
And the Times responded that I would not be used for future Occupy Wall Street coverage,
which I believe was somewhat the case anyway, because some of my Twitter feeds had shown
subjective support for the movement at large, so it wasn't exactly a New York Times position.
You know, so often I do not think it's about what your position is, since when you watch
television with the mainstream journalists, they're constantly pontificating about what
they feel about almost every different issue.
It's what that opinion is.
It's not that you have an opinion.
Well, you know, I think there's a storied history in America's mainstream press about
which opinions become controversial, and you get targeted from expressing them, and
which don't.
And I think when it comes to popular movements that question an economic status quo, you
know, a target from the right, we're in.
We just saw this tweet by a Guardian reporter, Adam Gabbitt, who said, I was told no press
today for security reasons when tried to get on Wall Street.
Your assessment of this two-month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street protests that you
have been covering throughout for or not for the New York Times?
Well, you know, I think what's amazing about this is that it's not one homogenous, monolithic
thing.
This is a very diffuse, amorphous spread of people taking action and not feeling representative
of politics, as they stand, are sufficient and taking their political spaces into their
hands.
And I think the press should take their voices into their hands, too, and I think it's a
shame that people are being barred from reporting on the scene, as seems to be the case too
often.
And we're going to talk more about that.
We're going to be joined by a New York City council member who actually went down to observe
on the night that the news came down just after midnight that the police were raiding
Occupy Wall Street.
He was arrested and held for more than 12 hours without being able to reach any attorney.
He was also held for two hours in a police van by himself while others were taken out
to be arraigned.
We're going to go to Seattle as well, speak with the former police chief there, and with
an 84-year-old, actually, former mayoral candidate who was pepper sprayed in the face.
Stay with us.
