I read the same article. The man who wrote the article was NOT a REPORTER. Reporters are credentialed employees of a recognized news media organization. This guy was a free-lance WRITER. Big difference. This isn't the first time that a free-lancer has gotten into a situation like this with no proof of his role.

While it's true that it's not illegal to take pictures of someone in a public area, if he had produced media credentials, even a business card, he would have been treated way different than someone who might have been lying about being a reporter.

As for the person kicked off AirTran...
Well, that'll teach 'em for flying AirTran (just kidding). If this happened to me, I'd have complied, left the plane and started raising holy hell with the gate agents. The key here is not to contest or battle it out with the crew. The less contentious you are, the better your case will be that you were not a problem to begin with.

Then once you're off that AirTran flight, you can ask one of the gate agents for their cell phone so you can call in a bomb threat to their private backdoor phone number, like one of their FAs did last week...and was caught within a few hours. Doh!