In Covering ‘Occupy’ Protests, Confusion, Misinformation and Police

By Alex Weprin 

As we noted earlier, cable news channels and local TV have been busy covering the “Occupy Wall Street” protest here in New York City. Above, you can watch a report from Bloomberg’s Micha Rondeau from Wall Street. Rondeau filed a blog post about trying to get in a position to cover the event:

I saw one man being taken away in handcuffs. I couldn’t see what he did. The people toward the front were the most vocal. It wasn’t that the police weren’t allowing reporters to the front. It was the crowd. Just like a crowd at a rock concert. I only saw one other reporter trying to do a live shot in that crowd.

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At the NY Times, Brian Stelter writes about some apparent misinformation spread by WNYW anchor Greg Kelly (who happens to be the son of NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly):

The comments about shutting down the subway continued into the 9 a.m. hour on WNYW, though no protesters or reporters were shown on screen backing up the comments. 

“They have talked about trying to shut down a portion of the mass transit system,” Mr. Kelly said around 9:30 a.m. As he wrapped up the program at 10 a.m., he repeated the warning. “And don’t forget, this afternoon at about 3 o’clock, according to various Occupy Wall Street media, they may attempt to shut down portions of the New York City mass transit system.”

Ms. Scotto added, “Or just hand out flyers, depending on who you talk to.”

CNN’s Christine Romans hosts an explanatory video about the movement:

CNN also had correspondent Alison Kosik on to talk about the protests, despite the fact that she was criticized for mocking them in a tweet when they first sprang up.

CNBC has been covering the protests all day, with Kayla Tausche on scene:

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