NY Times
January 15, 2002
Bloomberg Frees the Press
By GABE PRESSMAN
For New York journalists, the administration of Michael R. Bloomberg shows
promise of being a liberating experience. We have never had a tougher time
than under the authoritarian rule of Rudolph W. Giuliani. When I say that
the Giuliani administration was the most repressive regime for the press in
the city in half a century, I am speaking from experience. I have covered
City Hall since 1949. Fortunately, we see signs that Mayor Bloomberg will
lift restrictions and restore the freedoms we have lost over the last eight
years.
Under Mr. Giuliani, the police set up what they called "pens" to control
journalists. The pens appeared everywhere there was a story of public
interest. And the press cards issued by the Police Department became a kind
of mark of Cain. If you wore one of these placards proclaiming that the
bearer "is entitled to pass police and fire lines wherever formed," you were
immediately herded into a pen and left there while, often, the general
public had greater access.
This happened at crime and accident scenes, at parades and other public
events. It happened during the World Trade Center disaster. For weeks, the
local press was kept on Canal Street. Television stations had to rely
largely on videotape furnished by the federal emergency management people.
Our local journalists were kept away. The nightly video pictures at ground
zero were shot by government photographers.
There were exceptions. While photographers and reporters were barricaded on
Canal Street, City Hall gave Hollywood celebrities police escorts to ground
zero and tours with the mayor.
Under the Giuliani administration, police often yanked press cards off the
necks of journalists who they believed were misbehaving by covering stories
too aggressively and, sometimes, officers put their hands over camera lenses
to prevent photographers from shooting scenes deemed inappropriate for the
public to see.
Only after a coalition of journalists around the city prepared to file a
federal lawsuit did Mr. Giuliani relent. An agreement was reached under
which Police Commissioner Howard Safir would no longer use pens except in
extraordinary circumstances and would tell police officers not to interfere
with news coverage. For a short time, there was a slight thaw in police-
press relations, but soon the old pattern resumed. Ultimately there was
little change. The mayor had, in his regal jargon, allowed for
"availabilities" when the press could question him. Nearly all police and
governmental news was filtered through him. Commissioners were essentially
barred from talking to reporters without the mayor's office clearing their
comments first.
There are indications that these restrictions will now be eased. Police
Commissioner Raymond Kelly has agreed to change police-press relations in
the streets. You could sense this at Mr. Bloomberg's inauguration, where
journalists were allowed to move around freely. And these days, at City
Hall, the mayor, his commissioners and staff and the police seem less quick
to use "security" as an excuse to curb the press.
During the Giuliani years, we in the press were forced to spend enormous
amounts of energy trying to get public records from city departments.
Sometimes, the requests for information took years to be adjudicated. The
courts invariably supported the news organizations but those delays made it
hard for the public to know what was happening in city government. Mr.
Giuliani changed the city in many ways. But as far as the press is
concerned, not for the better. We can hope that his successor will quickly
undo this harmful legacy.
Gabe Pressman is chairman of the freedom of the press committee of The New
York Press Club.
|