Mayor Bloomberg shows his irritation with disabled journalist

From The New York Times City Room blog. Blogger PolitickerNY also wrote about the incident.

To all the New Yorkers who have brought on the indignation of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, add one more: Michael A. Harris, (pictured) a disability-rights advocate and journalist with a tape recorder that went off at the wrong time.

Mr. Harris, who uses a wheelchair, unwittingly found himself on April 16 as the source of an awkward and uncomfortable 60 seconds with the mayor during a news conference at Gov. David A. Paterson’s Midtown office.

As Mr. Bloomberg was delivering remarks on the governor’s introduction of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in New York, someone bumped into a tape recorder that Mr. Harris was carrying in his pocket. That triggered the recorder’s play button, and noise from an earlier rally Mr. Harris had recorded at City Hall started playing.

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times Michael A. Harris, a disability-rights activist, in 2006. The noise, which was not playing loudly enough for most other people in the room to notice, rattled Mr. Bloomberg.

“Can we just stop this, and maybe we’ll start again?” the mayor asked.

At that point the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, leaned over to the mayor, covered the microphone on the lectern and whispered in his ear, “He’s disabled.”

Mr. Harris’s disability, and the fact that he was clearly having difficulty reaching the recorder to shut it off, was apparently of little consequence to the mayor.

“I understand that — he can still turn it off,” Mr. Bloomberg was overheard saying.

It was almost a full 60 seconds — punctuated by sighing and glowering from Mr. Bloomberg and more than a few quizzical looks from members of the audience — before Mr. Harris shut the machine off.

After the news conference, Mr. Harris, who writes for Examiner.com, a lifestyle Web site, apologized for creating a disruption and explained how he believed that the source of the noise had been an unfortunate grazing from a photographer standing
nearby.

“Being singled out and criticized is not something any reporter likes to happen,” Mr. Harris said. “Yes, I felt the mayor was maybe a little bit overly aggressive in his scolding, but I understand why he did it.”

An aide to the mayor later called this reporter to explain that the Bloomberg administration frequently went out of its way to accommodate Mr. Harris at press events, providing him with transportation in a special van and ensuring wheelchair access is available.

In the late afternoon on April 16, Mr. Harris said that after reflecting on what happened, he would seek an apology from the mayor’s office.