The GOP: Racially Profiling the Press
A few recent news items suggests the Bush/Cheney team may be racially profiling journalists and ethnic publications:
* In Arizona, the campaign inquired about the race of a photographer from the Arizona Daily Star before the photographer named Mamta Popat, was allowed access to photograph a Cheney campaign event. The paper refused to tell the campaign the race of the photographer. A spokesperson for the campaign defended the request as an appropriate security measure. But the managing editor of the paper Teri Hayt said "One has to wonder what they were going to do with that information. Because she has Indian ancestry, were they going to deny her access? I don't know."
* And here in New York, City Limits reports the RNC initially rejected credentials to cover the convention for at least 10 ethnic publications, including major Haitian, Bangladeshi, Polish and Muslim newspapers. (The RNC relented under pressure from the New York chapter of the Independent Press Association and has given credentials to at least seven of the publications).