Howard Kurtz: “When NBC anchor Brian Williams and his crew were trying to take pictures of a National Guard unit securing a Brooks Brothers shop in downtown New Orleans [on Wednesday], a sergeant blocked the footage by ordering them to the other side of Canal Street.”

“I have searched my mind for some justification for why I can’t be reporting in a calm and heavily defended American city and cannot find one,” Williams says. “I don’t like being told when I can and cannot walk on the streets and take pictures.”

But he told his crew to stop shooting, because “authority in New Orleans is as good as the last person to make the rule,” Williams says. “I didn’t have time to take it up the chain.” Here’s more about the restrictions on media access…