The New York Times‘ Brian Stelter looks at the coverage of today’s Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City. The “Day of Action” includes plans to “gather at 16 central subway hubs and take our own stories to the trains,” which were a major topic of conversation this morning on WNYW:
“This is a big deal,” the Fox co-anchor Greg Kelly said as his newscast started at 7 a.m. Wednesday. “We have thousands of protesters that have indicated they are going to try to shut down the subway system as well, and occupy sixteen transit hubs across the five boroughs.” Mr. Kelly and his co-anchor, Rosanna Scotto, spoke of indications of a “shut down” plan three other times that hour.
At 8 a.m., Mr. Kelly, who is the son of Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, said of the protesters on Wall Street: “Right now they’re kind of milling about. But the word is that they intend to shut down or attempt to shut down the New York Stock Exchange and vast portions of the New York City transit system.”
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According to the Times, protest organizers are denying the existence of such a plan, and WNYW provided no evidence, either verbally or visually, to support the claim.
>Update: Glenn Greenwald points out on Salon that one of the original sources to report on the plan to “shut down” the subway was The New York Times itself.