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Mayor Michael Bloomberg Evicts Occupied Zuccotti Park, In Contempt of Court Order: Reviewing Times Coverage

November 15, 2011   ·   0 Comments

Source: NYTX

By Chris Spannos:

Reviewing New York Times coverage of the eviction of Occupied Zuccotti park.

First up is the article “Police Clear Zuccotti Park of Protesters” by James Barron, Colin Moynihan, and seven other contributing reporters. The word “Clear” in the article headline suggests a safe and sanitized version of events. However, Times reportage in other articles today, and reviewed below, suggest a messier version of events, and which resulted in police arresting almost 200 people.

Barron and Moynihan begin by telling their readers that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg “defended” his decision to remove the protesters from Zuccotti Park.

Mr. Bloomberg ordered police to forcefully evict protesters early Tuesday morning based on “health and safety” concerns.

However, none of the four Times’ articles published online today and reviewed here mention that the city had made park conditions more precarious by not allowing generators and heating nor did they accommodate protestor requests for portable bathrooms there – as is common at both public and private events held in parks.

Mr. Bloomberg’s additional reasoning for the eviction was to clean the park. However, as was demonstrated one month ago mid-October, those occupying the park showed that they were capable of cleaning the park themselves when the city threatened to remove them at that time and for similar reasoning. The Times’ articles fail to mention this point as well.

According to the Times, Mr. Bloomberg said that “the city had planned to reopen the park on Tuesday morning after the protesters’ tents and tarps had been removed and the stone steps had been cleaned.”

The article frames Mr. Bloomberg as being very open minded and amicable when he tells the Times that “the police had already let about 50 protesters back in when officials received word of a temporary restraining order sought by lawyers for the protesters.”

Mr. Bloomberg said that the police had closed the park again “until lawyers for the city could appear at a court hearing later in the morning.”

However, Times’ authors omit crucial parts of this story.

Justice Lucy Billings issued the temporary restraining order (see PDF) requiring the protesters to be readmitted to Zuccotti Park with their tents.

Margaret Ratner Kunstler from the National Lawyers Guild, and who is involved in the case, said today that “Bloomberg is in contempt of the court order.”

She said that, in effect, Bloomberg had said that the park would be open, but not allow tents, the judge said tents should be allowed. Bloomberg responded by closing the park altogether. A hearing was scheduled for 11:30 AM today.

NYTX phoned the National Lawyers Guild to speak with a representative about the hearing. We were asked to phone back after the hearing was over.

According to this Times article, Mr. Bloomberg is defending the protesters:

Mr. Bloomberg had struggled with how to respond. He repeatedly made clear that he does not support the demonstrators’ arguments or their tactics, but he has also defended their right to protest and in recent days and weeks has sounded increasingly exasperated…

A second article with the headline “As the Police Moved In, the Word Went Out: ‘It’s Happening’” by Colin Moynihan and Corey Kilgannon, explains more about the process of police eviction that protesters experienced this morning but that was cleansed from most  Times reporting today:

About 1 a.m. they entered the park and made quick work of the tent city and tarp-covered bundles and other belongings. They sliced them apart and tossed them all to the sidewalk bordering this square-block space in Lower Manhattan that had become a communal living space for protesters decrying economic inequity.

The belongings were fed into garbage trucks, and police officers using a pickup truck outfitted with a sound device made announcements and turned up the volume, sending piercing noise into the park.

In the Times’ City Room blog, “Mayor Bloomberg Steps In,” Clyde Haberman urges protesters to walk away and “declare unilaterally that we won.” Haberman points to an Adbusters’ argument for this strategy, but his link to the argument is actually to another Times blog, “Occupy Movement Could Declare ‘Victory’ and Scale Back Camps, Founder Suggests,” by Robert Mackey. But this latter blog only partially quotes Adbusters’ Tactical Briefing that was published Monday before Bloomberg’s eviction of Zuccotti Park. Haberman fails to capture Adbusters’ full tactical proposition.

Haberman wraps his blog up by placing the emphasis on a struggling Mr. Bloomberg:

For Mr. Bloomberg, this is an important test. He has walked a fine line. At times he has wobbled along it, weaving between calls for order and an insistence that the right of assembly must be preserved.

The Times coverage does include some quotes from protesters, and their allotment of some space to Adbusters’ views is complementary. However, the overall framing and emphasis trivializes Occupy Wall Street while at the same time emphasizes the struggles of Mayor Bloomberg.

Chris Spannos is Editor of NYTX.

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