An earlier protest against the pipeline.
Enjoying the bad press stemming from the arrest of landowners who are “trespassing” on their own land, TransCanada figured it would go ahead and have some journalists arrested, too.
From FuelFix:
Two New York Times journalists were detained briefly by law enforcement officers while reporting on demonstrations against the Keystone XL pipeline in northeast Texas, the newspaper said Thursday.
The journalists, reporter Dan Frosch and a photographer, were on private property with the permission of the landowner to report on protesters there on Wednesday, Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said. She said she did not know the identity of the photojournalist.
Like the “landowner” gets to have any say over who can be on his land. Come on. What do you think this is, America?
While reporting on the protests Wednesday, the journalists were approached by a private security worker and a law enforcement official and were detained, Murphy said.
They identified themselves as media and were subsequently released, she said.
“They were released and told that they were risking arrest for trespassing if they stayed where they were, so they left the location,” Murphy said.
In a statement, TransCanada said the Times “did not have the right to report” at that location. Because the First Amendment is location-specific.
Nothing ensures that your unpopular pipeline-building process stays out of the papers better than arresting reporters from The New York Times.
