Liberty is particularly upset at the Times, disputing the newspaper’s contention that nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggested COVID-19. “We don’t delete photos or any other material at the request of an individual law enforcement officer,” said Sally Buzbee, the AP’s executive editor and senior vice president.
In the midst of reporting its own story about Liberty’s decision on March 24, an Associated Press photographer was approached by a campus security officer, asked to leave and to delete all of the images he had taken at Liberty.Īfter consulting with a supervisor, the photographer deleted the images - a decision the news organization said was wrong in retrospect. “We are disappointed that Liberty University would decide to make that into a criminal case and go after a freelance journalist because its officials were unhappy with press coverage of the university’s decision to convene classes in the midst of the pandemic,” spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said. The Times said its freelance photographer was doing the routine job of taking a picture of someone interviewed for the news story. The Times story was headlined, “Liberty University Brings Back its Students, and Coronavirus Fears, Too.”
The only reason that trespassing accusations weren’t made against Elizabeth Williamson, the Times reporter who wrote about Liberty on March 29, was because eyewitnesses could not be found, Falwell said. “Bringing an action on trespassing charges seems something beside the point,” Tofel said.
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