I sent the following to Arthur Brisbane, the public editor at the New York Times.
Mr. Brisbane,
My name is Lee Stranahan. I’m a writer and filmmaker. I’ve formerly been a blogger at The Huffington Post and I currently write for my friend Andrew Breitbart’s site. I consider myself politically independent. I’ve written a number of pieces about the origins of the Occupy movement, profiles of some of the anarchist activists behind it and done a fair bit of editorializing against the Occupy protests on a variety of grounds.
I published a piece last night about freelance New York Times reporter Natasha Lennard. I found a video a couple of day ago of a panel she spoke on and I think from watching the video it’s very clear that she is actually part of the #Occupy movement and a radical far-left ideologue — none of which was revealed in her writing in the Times about Occupy. In fact, during the panel she’s referred to by another panel as a fellow protester.
I also believe she was willingly arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, as were other protesters. These volunteer arrests have obviously been a civil disobedience tactic of the Occupy movement. The Times piece and other reporting about it treated Ms. Lennard’s arrest as though an innocent reporter was swept up in the protests and further, Ms. Lennard’s arrest became a significant turning point in the story of #Occupy itself. I would argue that the Brooklyn Bridge arrests and Ms. Lennard’s arrest in particular were the start of significant media coverage for Occupy Wall Street.
I believe the New York Times needs to correct the record on Ms.Lennard’s role in the Occupy movement.
Regards,
Lee Stranahan
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Readers deserve to know if a ‘reporter’ is an activist. It’s not a big deal if the author is actually an activist, and not an objective reporter - just say so.
The New York Times should be setting the example in this regard. Either the NYT are so clueless they didn’t realize this gal was knee-deep in OWS, or they just don’t care. Even if they didn’t know, they shouldn’t have needed more than an hour from the moment your story went up at BigGovernment to post some sort of clarifying statement explaining her involvement in OWS, generally, and her actions on the day of the 700 arrests.
Pathetic.
Well, it’s a Sunday night. Let’s see what happens on Monday.
I tweeted about Lennard three weeks ago.
Among other things, I noted that she tweeted “shit gonna get crazy” two days before the bridge arrests.
http://twitter.com/#!/natashalennard/status/119179772264849409
@natashalennard Natasha Lennard
if @radiohead play #occupywallstreet on saturday, shit gonna get crazy. do hope the rumours are true
28 Sep via web
then there’s this:
http://twitter.com/#!/natashalennard/status/83619089725145088
Natasha Lennard
@natashalennard Natasha Lennard
seeking urban planning/some type of expert on how city design aids/hampers street protest. help?
22 Jun via TweetDeck
(too bad what breitbart’s site is doing is far worse than the nytimes….you’re making hateful mccarthyite arguments instead of calmly showing how media was unfair to tea parties and the reporters are biased….your wrong is worse.)
Manhattan Times knows fired here because harms plausible deniability that they are a fair an honest broker of the war between followers of Hayek and followers of Marx.