Protesters are gathering outside The New York Times building on Eighth Avenue this morning, apparently as part of the Occupy movement’s May Day protests. The protests are being organized in concert with labor unions; the Times is involved in a protracted contract negotiation with the Newspaper Guild.
Times freelancer Natasha Lennard was arrested covering Occupy Wall Street last fall; after she spoke about the protests at a public event, a BigGovernment.com blogger accused her of being an Occupy supporter. Lennard said she was not aligned with the protests; the Times defended her reporting but said it didn’t plan to use her again.
Lennard later said that she didn’t want to be part of mainstream media because she has too many “problems with what does or does not get to be a fact — or what rises to the level of a fact they believe to be worth reporting.”
Armin Rosen comments on Tuesday’s protests:
BTW, #OWS has now protested the Metropolitan Opera, the Air and Space Museum and the NYT. There’s something not quite…liberal about this.
— Armin Rosen (@therealarosen) May 1, 2012
