Bloomberg not asked to sign NYPD letter

Joe Pompeo of Capital New York writes about the media that have pushed back against the New York Police Department for blocking their reporting of Occupy Wall Street, and notes that one organization, Bloomberg News, did not sign a letter of protest to the police chief.

Pompeo writes, “They started with the core group that had attended the August meeting on the Levi Aron incident. But they wanted to get other news outlets on board, too, so they went to The New York Post, WNBC, WCBS, Dow Jones, the Associated Press, Reuters and several others, each of whose attorneys were happy to contribute their signatures.

“There was, however, at least one conspicuous ommission: Bloomberg News, which also had boots on the ground during the Occupy Wall Street protests.

“The absence of Mayor Bloomberg’s media outlet from a blistering letter to his police force did not go unnoticed in the Bloomberg newsroom, where there were whispers as to why the company hadn’t signed on. It turns out they were never asked to do so, according to several people familiar with the matter, not for any particularly controversial reason, but because of a mere oversight as the letter was being drafted. A Bloomberg News spokesman declined to comment on whether the company would have signed the letter had they been approached, or whether it shared its competitors’ views that journalists were unreasonably restricted and mistreated by police while attempting to cover the demonstrations.”

Read more here.