Our media is even slimier than I imagined.

[No Elephants]

Those of you who have seen my rants about the media are no doubt surprised.

Dear New York Times,

This letter is in regards to the article you published today on the Texas Tar Sands written by Dan Frosch (“Last-Ditch Bid in Texas to Try to Stop Oil Pipeline,” October 12, 2012). (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/us/protesters-gather-at-keystone-xl-site-in-texas.html?_r=1)

Mr. Frosch’s portrayal of the blockade, activists’ efforts to stop the pipeline, and the depiction of TransCanada are misleading. The story is missing facts. I was with the NYT reporter Dan Frosh on October 9th and 10th when he visited the Tar Sands blockade in Winnsboro,TX. My partner and I were doing independent media at the same time and same place.

First, Mr. Frosch failed to mention that he and a NYT photographer were detained and handcuffed while covering the story, allegedly for passing an “arbitrary boundary” stipulated by TransCanada. I was there immediately after they were released. The detention and handcuffing of the NYT reporters is significant because there has been serious media censorship and repression surrounding the Keystone XL Pipeline blockade.

I first met Mr. Frosch the night of October 9th. On that evening, two livestream bloggers who were in the tree sit, Elizabeth Ace and Lorenzo Serano, were arrested despite the fact that they held official press passes. This fact does not appear in the NYT feature.

Also, Mr. Frosch neglected to mention that the media boundary mysteriously and arbitrarily moved back sixty feet on October 10th, the day after we covered the livestreamers descending from the trees. The new boundary can only be interpreted as a media censorship tactic used by police and the TransCanada security firm–now indistinguishable units. It is is currently impossible to see the actions going on at the blockade. The media is now pushed back so far, that Mr. Frosch’s own photographer struggled to get a decent shot of the tree sitters.

Furthermore and more importantly, the picture that Mr. Frosch painted of the protesters is minimizing and inaccurate. Was he not informed that there is a dedicated group of over twenty individuals, not including the current tree sitters pushing the campaign? This group provides critical jail support, medical care, and functions as a media team.

http://documentingresistance.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/the-new-york-times-got-it-wrong-with-the-tar-sands-blockade/


unreal. And we think that we still have a First Amendment.

[Enthusiast]

1. The first amendment has become

a figment of our imagination. It has become dependent on the content of the speech.

[No Elephants]

2. I never imagined that

(a) an American reporter and a news camera operator in 2012 would be handcuffed and detained, even briefly, while gathering news in a peaceful manner, let alone that

(b) the reporter would fail to mention that little detail in the news report of that day's events.

I find (b) more puzzling and possibly more dangerous, than (a). I realize that the journalist is supposedly not supposed to become the story and also not supposed to create news, but I don't think either of those things would have happened if the fact of being handcuffed and detained had been simply mentioned.