@megan, you don’t have a press pass; that’s your option. But why should some random NYPD take your word that you’re press?

Aside from the question of whether credentialing by law enforcement is appropriate in the first place (inasmuch as it can potentially conflict with first amendment protections), the NYPD's processes for acquiring credentials are, to put it nicely, Kafkaesque. To put it bluntly: they're ridiculous.

Visit the "press eligibility" page of New York Finest and you'll find the following requirements:

First-time applicants should contact the Press Credentials office (above) before completing their application.

Applicants must be a member of the media who covers, in person, emergency, spot or breaking news events and/or public events of a non-emergency nature, where police, fire lines or other restrictions, limitations, or barriers established by the City of New York have been set up for security or crowd control purposes, within the City of New York; or covers, in person, events sponsored by the City of New York which are open to members of the press.

Applicants also must submit one or more articles, commentaries, books, photographs, videos, films or audios published or broadcast within the twenty–four (24) months immediately preceding the Press Card application, sufficient to show that the applicant covered in person six (6) or more events occurring on separate days .

According to the last paragraph, you have to demonstrate coverage as an uncredentialed reporter in order to get credentialed. So the only way to comply with the law is to have previously broken the law repeatedly.

It should be noted here that there are tiered layers of press passes. The lowest is fairly easy to get if you're persistent. And by persistent, I mean willing to spend weeks getting in touch with the NYPD press office, eventually reaching a live person, and making an appointment months away, and hoping (in order to be within the letter of the law) that nothing tantalizingly newsy and earth-shattering happens in the intervening period.

The "real" press pass, the one that allows you to cross yellow police tape, is only attainable if you've covered the kind of story that necessitated crossing the yellow line--without credentials. (Thus, rookie reporters often sub in their bylines for breaking news stories and submit falsified copy to the NYPD.)

There's also a more subtle problem, one that's more likely to affect a smaller news org like the Observer than a larger one with more resources. Consider this line:

The applicant covered in person six (6) or more events occurring on separate days.

That rules out anyone at a legitimate news organization who's working in a legitimate journalistic capacity who happens to be ... an editor. Despite the fact that I can demonstrate to the NYPD in a myriad of different ways that I'm "press" by any reasonable definition--with plenty of documentation--I need to have covered six events myself (again, uncredentialed) and published reports about the same. It's rare that I send editors to do field reporting and rare that I can do it myself (which is a shame, because I love it), but the fact that I can't do that if we need the additional reporting is patently absurd.

But let's face it, it may not even matter. Five of the reporters on TheAwl list were credentialed.

They were arrested anyway.

Stu Loeser

Stu Loeser, Mayor Bloomberg's spokesperson, just sent out a note regarding an Awl report listing the names of reporters arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests. In the email, reprinted below, he goes on the attack, noting that only 5 of the 26 reporters arrested are credentialed by the city, almost as if to distinguish between the rights of credentialed and non-credentialed reporters.

And who were the actual, real, card-carrying, government certified reporters arrested? AP reporter Julie Walker and Patrick Hedlund from DNA Info were both issued Desk Appearance Tickets for Disorderly Conduct, while Paul Lomax of DNA Info and Karen Matthews and Seth Wenig, both of the AP, had their arrests for trespassing voided.

Full memo after the jump. Do enjoy, and, don't forget: Bloomberg's spokesperson reads The Awl. Be less stupid:

 

To:       Interested Parties
From:   Stu Loeser
Re:       Just 5 of the “26 arrested reporters” are actually credentialed reporters
Date:    Thursday, November 17, 2011

Like all of you, I’ve heard and read many reports of reporters who supposedly were wearing valid NYPD press credentials, yet allegedly encountered problems on the streets of New York. Like some of you, I had those stories in mind when I read The Awls’ rundown of “The 25 26 Arrested Reporters and What They Do.”  (In case you missed it, that piece, that piece is linked here.)

Not being familiar with many of the media outlets for which The Awl says these reporters work, I had the list of “26 arrested reporters” checked against the roster of reporters who hold valid NYPD press passes.

You can imagine my surprise when we found that only five of the 26 arrested reporters actually have valid NYPD-issued press credentials. Note that we didn’t check – and don’t really care for the sake of this exercise – if the reporter’s credential lists the media outlet for which he or she currently works.

One more thing. Of the five reporters with valid press credentials who were arrested, three were arrested for trespassing and had their arrest voided. As the Associated Press and others reported, there’s no doubt that these personnel – and others – were in fact trespassing.  There’s no question that protesters sliced open a chain link fence and tried to take over private property.

This report was published by the AP:

“Reporter Karen Matthews and photographer Seth Wenig of The Associated Press in New York were taken into custody along with about eight other people after they followed protesters through an opening in a chain-link fence into a park, according to an AP reporter and other witnesses. Matthew Lysiak of the Daily News of New York was also arrested at the park, according to witnesses and the Daily News.”

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Stu

Update 9:59 p.m. Stu Loeser responded to our post from his @stuloeser Twitter account (and also made some very helpful copy editing suggestions!).

Also, @Megan, it's not "AS IF" I'm distinguishing btw "credentials and non-credentialed reporters" (sic), that's exactly what I am doing

& @megan, you don't have a press pass; that's your option. But why should some random NYPD take your word that you're press?

As a point of reference, the eligibility guidelines for NYC Press Credentials include:

Applicants must be a member of the media who covers, in person, emergency, spot or breaking news events and/or public events of a non-emergency nature, where police, fire lines or other restrictions, limitations, or barriers established by the City of New York have been set up for security or crowd control purposes, within the City of New York; or covers, in person, events sponsored by the City of New York which are open to members of the press.

Applicants also must submit one or more articles, commentaries, books, photographs, videos, films or audios published or broadcast within the twenty–four (24) months immediately preceding the Press Card application, sufficient to show that the applicant covered in person six (6) or more events occurring on separate days .

Earlier today, Bloomberg said, "There’s an awful lot of free space up in Buffalo, New York, if you want to go there. I don’t think you do."

Then, per Lisberg, Loeser explained:

"He's not saying, 'Do you want to go there?'" Loeser said. "The 'you' is, do you developers want to go to Buffalo and build?"

Loeser added, "I'm being entirely serious about this. This is what he said."

Georgina Bloomberg, who is 27-years-old, is a professional show jumper. She was hurt Friday night when her saddle came loose and she was tossed from her horse, which is appropriately named Radio City.

Although, she was briefly knocked unconscious, the young Bloomberg was able to walk out of the arena where the event was held on her own, According to her publicist, Kenneth Kraus, Bloomberg didn't go to the hospital until Saturday morning.

"It wasn't until the following morning that she had back pain and went to the hospital … I talked to her yesterday. She said her head was fine," Kraus told the Associated Press on Sunday.

Mayor Bloomberg's spokesman Stu Loeser also sent e-mailed a statement to the AP.

"The mayor is very concerned, as any father would be," Loeser said.

In the past, Mayor Bloomberg has encouraged his daughter's equestrian career. We'll see if this accident doesn't encourage the Mayor, who has been so protective of New Yorkers with his bans on smoking and fatty foods, to change his tune about his daughter's dangerous horseback riding habit.

I assumed Cuomo meant migrating out of New York, a la Golisano and Limbaugh. I would have asked him, but Cuomo went through an elaborate media avoidance exercise.

Political consultant Joe Mercurio added some context to Cuomo's remarks on my FaceBook page: "He did not say they would move away, he said they would stay home and not vote for the Democrats if they raised taxes. I might add, just like they voted with their feet last year and Democratic turnout was way down."

Mercurio's writing was part of a lively debate on FaceBook, with contributions from Roger Stone, Henry Goldman, Stu Loeser and Aaron Naparstek:

Joe Mercurio: "Cuomo would be correct if he said that."

Roger Stone: "when will he tell us what spending he will cut in order to cut taxes?"

Henry Goldman: [links to a story headlined: "Rich Stay When Taxes Rise, New Jersey Analyst Says]

Goldman: "I'm always amused by politicians who defend the rich against the abuses of the poor."

Mercurio: "Henry, he did not say they would move away, he said they would stay home and not vote for the Democrats if they raised taxes. I might add, just like they voted with their feet last year and Democratic turnout was way down."

Loeser: "As that story reports, Henry, "only" two percent of taxpayers affected by Maryland’s millionaires tax left. But in NYC, the top ONE percent of filers currently pay 57.2% of the City's Personal Income Tax. So even if "only" two percent of our biggest taxpayers leave, if they're the ones most affected by the tax, we're, umm, screwed."

Loeser: "And you should read this, too: [links to a story headlined "Like it or not, we need it! Wall St. is New York's Main Street."]

Goldman: "I'm familiar with the argument."

Mercurio: "Actually, the fear is not the millionaires leaving, as bad as that might be, the fear is losing thiose between $100,000 and $500,000, who would leave in greater numbers."

Aaron Naparstek: "Do we have an example of this ever happening anywhere -- a municipality or state raises taxes and suddenly a bunch of wealthy inhabitants disinvest and move somewhere else?"

Loeser: "Well, within the confines of this discussion, the only proof that we have that it happens is the data in the story Henry posted."

The endorsements are scheduled one day after a “unity rally” on the City Hall steps, where Thompson was endorsed by a number of Democrats, including the Democratic candidates for city comptroller and public advocate, John Liu and Bill de Blasio. Some Democrats were notably absent from the rally, including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Democrats on the state and federal level have been criticized by some Thompson supporters for not playing a more active role in this year’s mayor’s race.

Thompson’s opponent, Michael Bloomberg, has enjoyed lots of Democratic support, and employs a number of former Schumer staffers including Howard Wolfson and Bradley Tusk on the campaign and Stu Loeser in City Hall. Iris Weinshall, Schumer's wife, was his first transportation commissioner. She left in 2007.

Since unenrolling from the Republican Party in 2007 in a public gesture toward an independent presidential run, Bloomberg has sought to highlight his support from Democrats. This weekend, he announced he was endorsed by “two prominent, longtime Democrats,” Peter Vallone Sr., the former Speaker of the City Council, and his son, Peter Vallone Jr., a Councilman in Astoria.

Schumer and Gillibrand are up for election next year, but only Gillibrand, who was appointed to the seat by the governor earlier this year, is expected to have any real competition.

ESPN just cut into @sportscenter to show @mikebloomberg working his way through the stands toward his seat at the Little League World Series

Mr. Bloomberg is trying to keep up the appearance of a mayoral candidate in a real race throughout one of the soggiest, least eventful and politically anticlimactic summers in memory. He’s wearing goofy clothes, speaking Medford, Mass.–accented Spanish and Twittering his random musings.

And, in an extraordinary display of commitment to retail campaigning, according to his aides, he’s eating pizza on a regular basis. 

“Eating pizza on the campaign trail is a time-honored New York tradition,” said Howard Wolfson, the communications director of the Bloomberg campaign, deadpan. “And this mayor’s working it.”

While Mr. Bloomberg faces decidedly unworrying opposition from Comptroller Bill Thompson, who rarely sticks his head out of the basements of city Democratic clubs for fear of Mr. Bloomberg’s aggressive campaign team whacking him, the mayor is trying very hard to go through the motions with a straight face.

Except when he can’t.

Like before the Pakistan Day Parade on Aug. 2, when he posed with local Pakistani dignitaries in a shirt that he would usually not be caught dead in, and winked knowingly at the laughing reporters before heading out to march in the rain. Or on Aug. 7, when several participants of a city volunteer program ran up to him and asked him to pose for a picture.

“Picture! Picture!” Mr. Bloomberg said, with sarcastic theatricality, as he obliged.

Mr. Bloomberg’s summer schedule, packed with politically advantageous visits to schools and housing projects and parade routes all around the city, presents him with a daily challenge of avoiding the zoned-out look of a man bored out of his mind.

Sometimes he succeeds. Other times, he doesn’t.

ON AUG. 5, the morning he won recognition as half of one of the best-dressed couples in America, he was running late for an event at the Castle Hill houses in the Bronx. On site, before the mayor arrived, one veteran of the City Hall beat regaled younger reporters with stories of the reliably combative and colorful Rudy Giuliani.

Covering Mr. Bloomberg, the reporter said, was “deadly” in comparison. The younger reporters nodded.

The mayor, accompanied by his spokesman, Stu Loeser, showed up 45 minutes late, dressed sharply in a navy suit, a striped shirt with French collar and a blue-and-red spotted tie. He made his remarks about reducing the carbon footprint of the city’s vast housing program, ceded the podium to his housing commissioner, John Rhea, and proceeded to look bored. 

As Mr. Rhea spoke (“As I was saying, we have a broad plan”), the mayor tilted his head to the right and looked off at a narrow row of windows in the gym’s rafters. He compared notes with Councilwoman Annabelle Palma. When Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. spoke about “farms in the sky” with inner-city grandmas gardening on rooftops, he stared off, again, into the distance. Angelo Esposito, the senior vice president for Services and Technology at the New York Power Authority, spoke about how “185,000 refrigerators were removed.”  

Mr. Bloomberg came to life when a reporter asked for clarifications about the behavioral issues that led the inhabitants of the housing project to use up so much energy.

Margarita Lopez, an official at the housing authority and a friend of Mr. Bloomberg’s who once declared him an “honorary lesbian,” stepped forward and talked about the problem of 30-minute showers.

“That sounds nice,” Mr. Bloomberg murmured from behind. Ms. Lopez tried to continue, but so did Mr. Bloomberg.

“Ed Koch once suggested taking a shower with a friend, even,” said Mr. Bloomberg, as audience members started clapping and laughing. “That was during the time we had a drought and he thought it would save some water. What?”

“I imagine the mayor has it wrong,” Ms. Lopez tried.

“I think that that’s an easy question,” the mayor said, referring back to the almost-forgotten query from the reporter.

“I’m not going to answer that because Mayor Bloomberg is always provoking me to follow,” Ms. Lopez said.

WHILE MR. BLOOMBERG does his best to stay awake, his campaign has stirred from its announcement of slumber-inducing endorsements—Mayor Ed Koch; Middle Village Chamber of Commerce; Impacto Latin News; Peter Papanicolaou, president of the Cyprus Federation of America—to mount selective, bullying attacks on the mayor’s likely opponent, Mr. Thompson.

Mr. Thompson’s call on July 23 for a debate with Mr. Bloomberg went almost unnoticed, until the Bloomberg campaign’s communications director, Howard Wolfson, later responded, “Mr. Thompson should first debate himself,” and went on to list some apparently contradictory archival comments from the comptroller on education. 

After Mr. Thompson criticized the mayor’s education record in a blog contribution on the Huffington Post on July 28, and called for the firing of the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, Mr. Wolfson unleashed an attack on Mr. Thompson’s lackluster record when he ran the old Board of Education.

And the Bloomberg campaign provided the New York Post with video of a campaign event on July 29 in which Mr. Thompson was shown to have sat idly by as an attendee called City Council Speaker Christine Quinn a “whore” who could “kiss my ass.” 

On Aug. 6, Mr. Wolfson responded to a critical audit from Mr. Thompson’s office about the mayor’s housing policy by attacking the comptroller’s handling of city pension money.

The next day, Mr. Wolfson—who, like the mayor’s other top campaign aides, draws a lavish salary from a campaign budget that is likely to reach $100 million—pitilessly mocked Mr. Thompson’s failure to amass enough small donations to qualify for public matching funds, saying that it belied the comptroller’s claim of grass-roots support.

Contracting out the nasty stuff to his campaign has allowed Mr. Bloomberg to spend most of his time in public acting nice to people.

On Aug. 7, the same day Mr. Wolfson eviscerated Mr. Thompson, scores of kids in green “Camp Goodwill” shirts and orange “NYC service” shirts waited for the mayor on a playground at the South Jamaica Houses in Queens, with posters for 98.7 Kiss FM (“The Best Variety of Old School and Today’s R&B”) hanging on the jungle gym.

Mr. Bloomberg, wearing khakis, a leather-braided belt, a blue oxford and powder-blue socks above his loafers, gave pointers to one young volunteer in an orange shirt.

An aide came over and asked Mr. Bloomberg to wear a pin in support of the program.

“Let’s put a service pin on, absolutely,” he said, as an aide affixed an orange pin that read “Use Your BLANK for good” to the mayor.

“O.K. Let’s do it,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

On the hot playground, which smelled of the black rubber padding under the jungle gym, Mr. Bloomberg stood at a podium and said, “Forty years ago, America celebrated the summer of love.”

He continued, “This year we are going one step further with what we call the summer of service.”

He talked about how volunteers “are weeding, and spreading mulch and compost,” and then walked over to a patch of soil where he put on gardening gloves and dug a hole for a sedum plant.

“I had a vegetable garden” Mr. Bloomberg said as he turned over soil with two volunteers.

“Could you look up, sir, sir, could you look up?” asked one photographer. 

“He’s planting, he can’t look up,” said an advance person, Jamie Lee.

“Sir, could you look up, look up at us,” another photographer asked.  

“Put a little dirt underneath,” said Mr. Bloomberg, his head resolutely down.  

“That’s a nice plant,” said Ms. Lopez, who also attended the event.

Rising from his planted sedum, he offered the photographers a halfhearted thumbs up and walked to his SUV and climbed in.

“Nice socks!” said Ms. Lee.

“I’m going to the game tonight!” Mr. Bloomberg explained.

“BUENAS TARDES. Hoy celebramos el orgullo de ser Dominicano,” the mayor said.

Mr. Bloomberg was now speaking at a makeshift podium draped with a small Dominican flag on Aug. 9, before marching in the Dominican Day parade. Earlier that morning, he had been on Meet the Press. It had gone well.

He said what he had to say about the great Dominicans of New York, and then spoke about a fatal collision between a small plane and a helicopter two days before over the Hudson River.

A reporter asked him whether he thought Guillermo Linares, a former mayoral aide whose candidacy for a City Council seat ended because of a filing error, should be allowed to run.

“The rules are the rules,” said Mr. Bloomberg, who pushed for a change in term-limits rules so that he could run for a third term. Mr. Loeser immediately stopped scrolling his BlackBerry and looked up apprehensively.

“Just goes to show you have to follow the rules,” said Mr. Bloomberg. 

Then they started marching.

Mr. Loeser inserted yellow ear plugs. The mayor, escorted by the police, took his place of honor at the center of the parade’s front line, behind the police marching band and ahead of signs hoisted above the crowd that read “Fuera la Corrupcion.”

There was much pushing and pulling and shouting by the police.

A man ran over and handed Mr. Bloomberg a poster with his and other politicians’ name on it.

“Sylvia!” he called over to Sylvia Alvarez, who handles Spanish press for his reelection campaign. She couldn’t hear him amid the din and quickly walked ahead so as not to be trampled.

At 39th Street, Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign videographer filmed people hollering, whistling, singing, picture-taking, Dominican-flag waving and I Heart D.R. T-shirt–wearing crowd as he briskly walked along the aluminum rails on the east side of Sixth Avenue. Mr. Bloomberg himself held a Dominican flag straight up over his head. The procession intermittently stopped to allow photographers to get pictures. On 46th Street, Mr. Bloomberg’s right hand was suddenly hoisted high above his head by a man wearing white linen pants and shirt. The mayor looked shocked.

The procession continued again, past 49th Street, where the digital red crawl wrapping around the News Corporation building read “‘Not survivable’ says Bloomberg.”

The parade went past Radio City Music Hall, where two campaign volunteers ran alongside the rails on the east and west sides of the avenue, distributing “Dominicans for Mike Bloomberg” signs, pulled from blue Mike Bloomberg NYC tote bags. An archipelago of sweaty marks started appearing on the front of Mr. Bloomberg’s blue sport’s shirt.

THE NEXT DAY, Mr. Bloomberg walked into the library of the Patrick Henry Preparatory School on East 103 Street to announce the end of social promotion in the fourth and sixth grades. He stopped at a desk by the door, upon which framed news clippings about his previous education announcements at the school were displayed. (“Mayor Gets School Reins,” read the June 13, 2002, Daily News. “Mike Takes School Reins,” read the June 13, 2002, New York Post.)

At a podium set up in front of colorful bookcases and hand-drawn posters of Charlotte’s Web and Madeline and picture books about Mars and Saturn, he heralded his own administration’s “impressive success.” Off to the side, Mr. Loeser shook his head disapprovingly at a book he was perusing called Business Leaders Who Built Financial Empires. The book included Ted Turner but not Michael Bloomberg.

During a lengthy question-and-answer period, a television reporter asked Mr. Bloomberg about Mr. Thompson’s accusations that homelessness had risen under the mayor’s watch.

“I’m not here to engage in a debate,” said Mr. Bloomberg,

That part of campaigning he had no use for.