Haiti reporters hassled by Sanford airport director

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Orlando Sentinel

Haiti reporters hassled by Sanford airport director
By Susan Jacobson, Orlando Sentinel

2:45 a.m. EST, January 21, 2010

A Los Angeles Times reporter says Larry Dale, president of Orlando Sanford International Airport, "bullied" and threatened to handcuff her and a reporter for The Wall Street Journal as they passed through the airport on their way home from Haiti.

Tina Susman, who works for the Times, said she and Dionne Searcey of the Journal arrived at the airport Tuesday aboard a cargo plane with evacuees from Haiti, where they had been reporting on the aftermath of the earthquake.

Susman said a confrontation occurred after Dale and airport Vice President Diane Crews asked an airport police officer about the reporters, who were wearing media credentials around their necks. Susman said she and Searcey were chatting with a nun who had been teaching in Haiti while waiting to leave on a bus that was taking evacuees to Orlando International Airport.

The reporters were ordered off the bus and ushered to a conference room, where they were questioned before being released. Susman said the episode lasted about half an hour.

Susman, a national correspondent who was Baghdad bureau chief for two years and spent 11 years covering Africa, said Dale insinuated that she and Searcey could be stowaways or terrorists with fake credentials. She said he shouted at her to sit down and be quiet.



Read more: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-sanford-airport-reporters-detained-20100120,0,1884511.story

[Wilms]

1. Thank you Judy.

Over and over.

[EFerrari]

2. Did you catch that today the Marines that showed up to guard

the General Hospital in PaP tried to protect the grounds from Amy Goodman? They had been there about half an hour and the first thing they do is try to keep the press out. Amazing.

[Downwinder]

3. "Peter principle." I rest my case. n/t

[Dr.Phool]

4. They should shut that shithole airport down.

I picked up my dad there over Thanksgiving week-end. He got a decent fare, and Allegiant quit flying into Clearwater.

For a place that gets 4 flights a day, security up the yin yang. And parking is $1.00 for every 20 minutes, in an empty lot.