How the World Didn’t Watch LAPD’s Eviction Night

“The whole world is watching” was an oft-heard chant on the lawns of City Hall in the early hours of Monday, when Occupy L.A. protesters and the LAPD engaged in a tense standoff that eventually culminated in Tuesday’s evacuation of the demonstrators and their 60-day encampment.

As one Occupy L.A. activist, journalist and blogger tells it, the LAPD paid close attention to that chant and “instantly addressed it”—by excluding all media organizations that weren’t part of the officially sanctioned “media pool,” including Patch, from covering the last few hours of peaceful demonstrations outside City Hall.

(Patch reporters David Fonseca and Anthea Raymond risked arrest and physical harm, nevertheless, by offering live coverage of the Occupy L.A. eviction on Tuesday night.)

That arbitrary exclusion of the media majority is a clear violation of the First Amendment, argues journalist Ruth Fowler in her blog, Occupy Los Angeles, which can be viewed by clicking this link.

Fowler’s blog, which was posted Tuesday morning, before the LAPD’s assertive but controlled crackdown, outlines the California Penal Code, Section 409.5(d) regarding evacuations, which states:

"Nothing in this section shall prevent a duly authorized representative of any news service, newspaper, or radio or television station or network from entering the areas closed pursuant to this section."

As Eagle Rock Patch’s frequently caustic political blogger Jon McDuffie pointed out in a separate communication, the catch lies in the words “duly authorized,” which, in the case of the Occupy L.A. evacuation, made “no provision for citizen journalists”—thereby ensuring that only reports filtered through the officially approved media pool reached the outside world.