Mark Stone, a Beijing correspondent for Britain’s Sky News who is facile with new technology, urged his Twitter followers to tune in Friday for a live report from Tiananmen Square.
A short time later, however, viewers of the British news program who took Mr. Stone’s advice were treated to the unusual spectacle of the reporter being arrested during his live broadcast, and then continuing to narrate his detention as it unfolded, from the back of a police van and a nearby compound.
Although Mr. Stone said his crew had permission to film in the square, and the necessary passes, he speculated that they might have been detained “because of one word, I think it was â€" we were talking about the 1989 protests, they didn’t like that.â€
The correspondent was eventually asked to stop filming his detention by an officer who told him, “you are not detained,†but admitted that he was also not free to go.
The journalists were released after about four hours, Sky News reported. According to the broadcaster, Mr. Stone “said that police told him the team were not displaying their passes correctly.â€
