NYPD
Nuanced!

Media Can Avoid NYPD Arrest By Getting Press Pass They Can’t Get

So far the NYPD has arrested 26 journalists covering the protests in New York this week, including two AP reporters and a Vanity Fair photographer. Loeser defended the arrests Thursday, according to a memo reprinted by The New York Observer. “You can imagine my surprise when we found that only five of the 26 arrested reporters actually have valid NYPD-issued press credentials,” he wrote.

Loeser added, in a tweet to Megan McCarthy, the news editor at The New York Observer (and a former Wired writer), “you don’t have a press pass; that’s your option. But why should some random NYPD take your word that you’re press?”

But Detective Sarubbi said that even if the NYPD were issuing press passes to cover the protests, there are no appointments available to get a press pass before January 2012.