Authorities Attacking Journalists During Protests Further Worries Press Advocates
News media freedom organizations asked local and state governments to curb attacks and arrests on journalists, which have reached an unprecedented height, those groups said. The challenges police face during the recent wave of protests “in no way justifies police violence toward the press and others who enact their protected rights to document and record these protests,” said a letter to the city of Philadelphia Friday from Free Press, public broadcaster WHYY, Common Cause and many press freedom and local news organizations. “This is not a question of a few isolated missteps,” said the Committee to Protect Journalists in a letter to U.S. mayors, governors and police chiefs Friday. “These reports have come from 53 different communities across 33 states.”
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The letters document a long list of recent incidents of police interfering with journalists, including a KSTP-TV St. Paulreporter being tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed, a WHYY reporter being arrested for covering a protest, and the on-camera arrest of CNN reporter Oscar Jimenez. Across the country, many are protesting for racial equality and against police brutality.
After police in Louisville allegedly fired pepper balls at a Gray Television news crew (see 2006010056), the broadcaster emailed recommendations to its newsrooms that included hiring security to protect news crews, communicating the whereabouts of journalists to authorities, pooling with other media organizations, and avoiding station logos and press jackets. Sarah Matthews, staff attorney for the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, told us the recent uptick in incidents hasn’t changed the advice the group gives reporters to wear prominent credentials and report from a safe distance.
In 2019, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker counted 152 press freedom incidents, but that number for 2020 is already over 300, said Matthews Monday. Traditionally, attacks on journalists during protests come from the protesters, but that hasn’t been the case in the recent wave of incidents, Matthews said. “Over 80 percent” of the press freedom incidents during the recent protests were by police, she said. The tracker counts 55 journalists attacked and 19 arrested in 2020.
“The Mayor is extremely troubled by the detention of the reporters, and in fact he has taken time to personally call and speak with some of those who were detained,” emailed a spokesperson for Philadelphia's Jim Kenney (D). The city’s protocols designate credentialed press as essential workers who aren’t subject curfew if they don’t impede police operations, the spokesperson said. “The protocols have been reiterated repeatedly in internal communications to officers.” In Philadelphia, the incidents of police targeting the press are being investigated by the department’s Internal Affairs Division, the spokesperson said.
The Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press sent letters to the governments of Minneapolis and New York City challenging police conduct toward journalists. Minneapolis hadn’t responded, but a spokesperson for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office told the group that journalists shouldn’t be subject to arrest. The Media Institute signed RCFP’s Minneapolis letter. “The right of the media to report on police activity is foundational to our democracy, but recent documented events in Minnesota and around the country have shown the extent to which police have been violating this constitutional right,” said Media Institute President Richard Kaplar.