Offi cials Denounce NYPD Oversight of Press Passes
Scott Stringer, Tish James join freelance photojournalists’ First Amendment critique
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
Just one day ahead of an
NYPD hearing on proposed
new regulations regarding
the adjudication of cases
where journalists have had their
government-issued press passes
suspended or revoked, leading city
offi cials gathered in Foley Square
downtown to demand instead that
oversight of press credentialing be
removed from the police department’s
jurisdiction altogether.
“Today, I’m to calling on Bill de
Blasio to cut through the bureaucracy
and cut to the chase,” City
Comptroller Scott Stringer said at
a press conferences attended by
roughly two dozen elected offi cials
and freelance photojournalists.
“He should immediately suspend
the NYPD’s role in issuing press
credentials today.”
Press passes — currently issued
by the NYPD — allow journalists
access to government buildings,
including City Hall and courthouses,
but also give them freedom of
movement during breaking news
events — everything from fi res
to the recent wave of protests following
the police killing of George
Floyd in Minneapolis.
Numerous speakers during the
press conference noted complaints
about the NYPD’s treatment of
journalists during the Black Lives
Matter protests, including the summary
confi scation of press passes
and camera equipment and police
shoving journalists out of the way
and, in one case, pulling a gun on
a crowd including reporters.
Michael Nigro, a freelance photojournalist
who formerly worked for
➤ THE POOL BOY SPEAKS, from p.8
ing my life, I am going to take the
kamikaze route,” Granda wrote to
Jerry Falwell. “It really is a shame
because I wanted to reach a peaceful
resolution and just move on
with our lives but if confl ict is what
you want, then so be it.”
In the same message string,
Falwell replied, “You should by
City Comptroller Scott Stringer is demanding that Mayor Bill de Blasio assume oversight of press
credentialing — and be “held accountable.”
BuzzFeed and was the lead organizer
of the August 17 press conference,
said that an NYPD press
pass has become “not so much a
badge as a bull’s-eye, a means of
the NYPD controlling and censoring
the press.”
At an event where Manhattan
Borough President Gale Brewer,
out gay Manhattan State Senator
Brad Hoylman, and, via a written
statement, New York State Attorney
General Letitia James all
joined in the call to remove oversight
of press credentialing from
the NYPD, no one was more forceful
in his critique than Stringer, a
top contender for mayor next year.
“I’ve just had enough of City
Hall’s purposeful attempts to limit
press access, to limit the ability of
journalists to get the information
they need,” he said. “This is nothing
now understand that I will not
be extorted. I have always treated
you fairly and been restrained in
response to your threats because
I did not wish to ruin your life. Going
forward, stop contacting me
and my family.”
Granda said that while he entered
into the sexual relationship
with the Falwells willingly, today
DONNA ACETO
new. This has been a pattern
over the last seven years.”
After this shot at the current
mayor, Stringer went on to condemn
police conduct during the
Black Lives Matter protests.
“Now we witness fi rsthand,
thanks to the photojournalists, the
police conduct going after protesters
the likes we have not seen in
a generation,” the comptroller said.
“This is absolutely an attempt to
thwart our democracy.”
Though there have been widespread
complaints from media
organizations in recent months
about the NYPD’s treatment of
journalists, the proposed new regulations
being considered at the
August 18 hearing are rooted in a
fi ve-year-old lawsuit by a freelance
photojournalist. J.B. Nicholas sued
the police in 2015 after his press
he feels the couple preyed upon
him.
“Whether it was immaturity, naïveté,
instability, or a combination
thereof, it was this ‘mindset’ that
the Falwells likely detected in deciding
that I was the ideal target
for their sexual escapades,” Granda
said.
In a statement released Friday,
MEDIA
pass was pulled while he covered
a Manhattan building collapse,
and Sergeant Jessica McRorie, an
NYPD spokesperson, last month
said the proposed new regulations
came as part of a settlement agreement
in that case.
Both Nigro and civil rights attorney
Norman Siegel acknowledged
that the specifi cs of the new regulations
were “a step in the right
direction” in codifying the rights
of journalists in danger of losing
their press passes, but Siegel
spoke in details about problems he
saw with the NYPD proposal.
Having the NYPD oversee the
hearings where journalists can
challenge the removal of their
pass, Siegel said, is a “confl ict of
interest,” and the grounds for confi
scating a pass — “failure to comply
with a lawful order of a police
offi cer” and “the intentional interference
or attempt to interfere with
the performance of a police offi cer’s
offi cial function” — are too vague.
Siegel indicated that he will go
into signifi cantly greater detail
during his testimony at Tuesday’s
NYPD hearing, but the overall
thrust of the press conference was
on what Nigro described as the
demand for “an exploratory committee”
to look into transferring
control away from the NYPD to another
entity.
In Stringer’s view, that entity
should be Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
offi ce, “where he will be held accountable.”
Others — including James,
Brewer, and Hoylman — were not
specifi c about what entity should
assume press credentialing responsibilities.
before news of the relationship
with Granda became public, Liberty
University said its “decision
whether or not to retain Falwell as
president has not yet been made.”
Its board of trustees, the statement
read, “requested prayer and patience
as they seek the Lord’s will
and also seek additional information
for assessment.
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