July 15, 2020 | 12:20pm

The NYPD wants to make it easier to take away journalists’ press credentials — weeks after massive protests against police brutality where working reporters were arrested doing their jobs.

The department is proposing changes to the rules that govern the suspension and/or revocation of press credentials issued to members of the media.

The policy changes specify that a reporter’s credentials, which allow journos to go behind police lines when reporting the news, could be suspended if they are arrested — though not necessarily convicted — or fail to comply with a “lawful order of a police officer” and if they attempt to interfere with a “police officer’s official function.”

The new rules also cite “misusing or misrepresenting the press credential while not acting in a news gathering capacity” and


“other conduct that endangers public safety or interferes with legitimate law enforcement needs” as reasons to take away credentials.

The changes follow an incident during protests on June 2 when NYPD officers surrounded, shoved and harassed a duo of Associated Press reporters covering the George Floyd protests in the city. Other reporters, including a senior reporter at Huffington Post were arrested.

Part of the tense encounter with the AP reporters was captured on video, and released by the wire service the same night, showing videojournalist Robert Bumsted and photographer Maye-E Wong trying to cover the Lower Manhattan-area rallies.

“Why are you essential?” one cop repeatedly yells at the pair after they identified as credentialed journalists.

At the time, working journalists were considered essential workers and were permitted to be out past the citywide 8 p.m. curfew, according to the mayor’s office.

“I don’t give a s–t,” another cop responds on the video.

“Get the f–k out of here, you piece of s–t,” another cops says.

Cops continued to push the two, trying to separate them and force them toward Bumsted’s car, according to the AP.

Both were wearing their AP identification, according to the report.

The NYPD will hold a public hearing on the proposed rule changes online from 10 a.m. to noon on August 18,


2020.