– AP scolds reporters for Tweeting about OWS arrests.

– Did the Newspaper Guild just endorse #OWS?

Sure sounds like it.

Guild launches online forum for journalists covering protests

09 Nov 2011

Covering the Occupation Movement can be hazardous.

A growing number of reporters and photographers have been tear-gassed, threatened with arrest or otherwise bullied by police. And while overzealous authorities appear to be the worst offenders, protesters also have been known to turn on anyone who seems to represent “corporate media” — most likely a media worker, sometimes a union member, trying to do a job.

In response, the Newspaper Guild has launched a Facebook page, called “Occupied Journalists,” to serve as an online forum for media workers to share survival strategies and anecdotes from the streets. Sara Steffens, a staff organizer in Oakland for the Guild and its parent union, the Communications Workers of America, said the online forum began when “we started hearing a lot of reports from all over the country from journalists running into trouble covering the protests.”

Police can tell the difference between a journalist simply covering what’s happening and a journalist who’s forgotten their objectivity and has joined in the protests.

I don’t recall them doing anything like this with the tea party, do you? Of course, the tea party didn’t have altercations with the law and respected our men and women in uniform. [via]

– Ouch. Bill Maher just beaten down to #2 by Frank J. Fleming:

– Media parrots “worker shortage” claims but the public isn’t buying it.

– Facebook and Google align with the tea party on copyright legislation:

Google, Facebook and other technology companies are aligning with the Tea Party to defeat copyright legislation championed by movie studios and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Tech companies are seen as the underdog in the lobbying battle over the Stop Online Piracy Act, which would allow the government or copyright holders to obtain court orders to force search engines and online advertising networks to cut ties with “rogue” websites using pirated material.

Silicon Valley has turned to traditional supporters in Congress like Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) to fight against the measure, but its strongest allies in the political world might be lawmakers with ties to the Tea Party.

Tea Party groups have generally expressed worry about government intrusion on the Web, and the Tea Party Patriots oppose Smith’s measure on the grounds that it would impose burdensome regulation on the economy’s most dynamic sector.

– Christie Haskell obliterates the ignorant government PSA campaign against co-sleeping.