The line between activism and journalism breaks

 Via Neiman Labs

By Hafsa Maqsood

December 10, 2025

“When journalists around the world are being killed for practicing their freedom of press, journalists have no choice but to become activists.”

There is a growing frustration in the pit of the global journalism industry’s stomach. A frustration that comes from witnessing an entire year of devastating war in the Middle East, massive bloodshed, and ongoing conflicts across the globe where nothing seems to be working. A sickening frustration fed by the reeking hypocrisy of trying to “holding truth to power” in a post-truth world simultaneously bowing to power.

This frustration was born long ago in the stomachs of marginalized members of various diasporas, like myself, coming from histories of ancestral displacement and ravaging colonialism, and it is in part what has motivated them to join media and journalism industries only to be met with walls of supposed objectivity. An “impartiality” that leads to donning a hollow mask of white neutrality discordant with their lived realities.

That frustration will come to a breaking point in 2025 and translate into tearing down the line between activism and journalism that has already been breached, particularly since the 2020 rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

When democracies are in peril, when international laws meant to hold humanity accountable are being disregarded, when people charged with criminal offenses are leading governments, when journalists around the world are being killed for practicing their freedom of press, journalists have no choice but to become activists.

In 2025, journalists will no longer be told that coming in to work with a “Free Palestine” sticker on their laptops or water bottles is controversial and against guidelines while a “Stand With Ukraine” sticker is praised. Massive refugee and humanitarian displacements that occurred in 2024 will also impact news audiences. As journalists respond to audience demands, this shift will encourage a journalistic focus on human interest and global perspective stories that amplify refugee and diaspora narratives. Diaspora communities will play a crucial role in shaping these narratives through activism and storytelling that will bloom in the 2025 media and journalism industry.

When giving a lecture on media framing at the University of British Columbia in 2022, I held a roundtable attended by many members of Palestinian diaspora in Canada. Every one of them expressed turning away from legacy media in favor of citizen journalism and treating activists as sources for news. What if journalists with training and established platforms could tap into these audiences who are rejecting them in favor of unofficial news sources? What does this rejection mean for the decline of legacy media and journalistic ethics of “truth-telling?”

The answers to these questions, I predict, will come to fruition in 2025. We, as an industry, will have to reevaluate the meaning of “journalistic independence” if we want that sickening pit of frustration to heal. And the demands of a growing diaspora born out of conflict, war, and displacement will be one exceedingly difficult to ignore.

Hafsa Maqsood is a journalist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Calgary.

Not in Kansas anymore: Alabama press violations echo earlier attack

 Via Freedom Of The Press Foundation

December 5, 2024

“Where are all the good people who are supposed to stop this from happening?”

Marion County Record co-owner Joan Meyer asked that question repeatedly before her death — a day after local police illegally and unconstitutionally raided her community newspaper and home in response to the Record’s reporting about a local restaurant owner’s drunk driving convictions.

Alabama reporter Don Fletcher and newspaper publisher Sherry Digmon might have asked themselves that same question.

Last year, the two were arrested on sham charges for allegedly revealing grand jury secrets. Digmon, who also served on the local school board, was charged with violating an Alabama ethics law as well. It’s yet another unfortunate effort to make journalism a crime and silence reporters.

The bogus criminal investigation came after Atmore News, the local newspaper co-owned by Digmon, published Fletcher’s article about a school board meeting and a subpoena seeking school board financial records from the previous year. The subpoena was issued by Escambia County District Attorney Stephen Billy.

Four months after the arrests, Billy admitted to personal and professional conflicts of interest in the cases, and removed himself as prosecutor. The state attorney general’s office dropped the charges soon after.

Now, Digmon and Fletcher, joined by a school board member and a district employee also caught up in the investigation, have filed a federal lawsuit against Billy, Sheriff Heath Jackson, and “allies” for conspiring to violate their First and Fourth amendment rights.

On the surface, the attack on Atmore News — like that on the Marion County Record — may appear limited to a few law enforcement officials abusing their power. But in both cases, a little digging reveals politically motivated multiparty schemes.

The similarities between officials’ arrest of Fletcher and Digmon and the raid on the Record are startling and informative. After the Marion raid, the response and backlash seemed to make a repeat unlikely soon. But just months later, the Atmore News found itself at the center of a similar attack on press freedom.

Full article here.

Publisher of raided Kansas newspaper delivers advice to journalists: ‘Make democracy great again’

 Via Kansas Reflector

November 18, 2024

TOPEKA — The editor of the Kansas newspaper raided by police last year has a message for journalists struggling with their sense of purpose.

Go on the offensive.

Eric Meyer, editor and publisher of the Marion County Record, delivered remarks Friday as he was inducted alongside his mother, Joan, into the Kansas Press Association Newspaper Hall of Fame.

“I think this is a time when we have to establish for the people of this country the fact that we are important, that we have things that we can tell them that they will want to know, that they will want to change their positions about,” Meyer said.

He added, in a nod to the results of the presidential election: “Let’s not make America great again. Let’s make democracy great again.”

Police raided the Marion County Record newsroom and the home where Meyer lived with his mother in August 2023 under the false pretense that journalists had committed a crime by looking up a public record. Joan Meyer, the 98-year-old co-owner whose profane clash with police officers was captured on camera, died a day after the raid from stress-induced cardiac arrest. The raid spawned five civil lawsuits and a criminal charge against the police chief who led the attack on a free press.

Meyer said he is “an odd duck” because he retired to run a newspaper, rather than retire from it. He returned to Kansas during the COVID-19 pandemic to take over the publication his parents had operated for decades. After teaching journalism for 20 years at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Meyer wanted to practice what he had been preaching — that journalism is still vital.

“We’re not talking about the future of journalists. We’re talking about the future of democracy,” Meyer said. “Because without journalism, there is no democracy. We can’t have an informed public making informed decisions that will lead our country if they don’t have information, solid information that’s reliable. Getting their attention, though, is a very serious problem.”

Before the raid on his newspaper, Meyer said, circulation was already up, “because we were trying to do the best news stories we could.” After the raid, thousands of people from across the country purchased subscriptions in a show of support. Many of them, he said, are actually reading the stories. Some of the out-of-state readers have become so invested in the news out of Marion that they are even writing letters to the editor.

His advice to other journalists: “Forget all the gimmicks.”

“Don’t worry about what you put on social media,” Meyer said. “Don’t worry about the video you’re shooting. Don’t worry about the blogs you’re writing. Don’t worry about the marketing techniques. Do good journalism, period. Good journalism. That means finding stories that affect people and giving them an opportunity to do something about it.”

Joan Meyer edited the newspaper for 50 years and continued writing until she died. Her last column ran in the same issue as her obituary.

Her death intensified national interest in a story about the abuse of power in trying to silence a free press.

“Although I’m sure she didn’t want to go out the way she did, worrying about the Hitler tactics and so on, it is kind of rare, at age 98, that your death means something to someone, that you go out and you’re you’re sort of a martyr to your cause,” her son said.






Other hall of fame inductees were Ann Brill, dean of the University of Kansas journalism school; Sally Buzbee, a former executive editor of the Washington Post and Associated Press; small-town publishers Cynthia Desilet Haynes and Ben Marshall; retired Wichita Eagle and Kansas City Star reporter Roy Wenzl; and photojournalists Barbara Kinney, David Peterson, George Olson, Joel Sartore and W. Eugene Smith.

At protests, police are increasingly arresting members of the press—especially those with cameras.

 

Via Columbia Journalism Review

October 7, 2024

Since the violence of last October 7—as the conflict between Israel and Palestine has grown deadlier, and spread more widely in the Middle East—it has also been, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker, a nonpartisan database of press freedom violations, a “protest year.” The visual journalists who cover demonstrations across America—photographers, videographers—are at the center of the action. “We have to get creative, go on the floor, shoot through cops’ legs, just to get that visual,” Madison Swart—a photojournalist in New York whose work has been published in Out and Cosmopolitan, among other places—told me. In May, while covering a pro-Palestinian protest, Swart was briefly detained by police officers—one of forty-three journalists who have been arrested in the past year, triple the previous number. According to Stephanie Sugars, a reporter for the US Press Freedom Tracker, “it has felt that the predominant number of incidents, at least since the protests started, are against people who are documenting visually in some capacity.”

--full article here.

The Age of Rage: Protest, Camera, Action

 

Via The Nation

September 21, 2024

"Photography radically acts as a language that speaks for the world’s oppressed and critically functions as a vital visual voice of resistance."

"Photography helps us understand what we are and imagine what we might become...

The fight for equality across the human condition radically evolves out of protest. Beyond the jackboots, the batons, the water cannon, the tear gas, the bullets, the tanks, the fences, the walls, the concentration camps and all means of surveillance, history teaches that what power fears more than anything is a people on the move against injustice. Looking at the history of photography, we can understand that progress across the political terrain of human rights has been difficult. Marginalized bodies, when divided, are vulnerable to capture, control and genocide. Thinking through our past in photographs and decentering the knowledge formations of imperial lenses means that we can critically join or remake the politics of the left intersectional, aligned in mission, and truly inclusive. This will create waves of solidarity and supportive modes of resistance that strategically enable people to embrace the different ecologies of freedom and resist imperialist politics that divide and rule" -- click for full article

For journalists, NYPD protest changes can’t come too soon

 Via Columbia Journalism Review

September 20, 2024

"For the sake of democracy and the protection of First Amendment rights, that day can’t come soon enough. In New York and across the nation, police departments should immediately ban kettling, which threatens the First Amendment rights of all protesters and specifically undermines the work of the press. As the Justice Department has noted, police departments should ensure that provisions are in place to allow journalists to continue to work, documenting events including police activity, when a lawful dispersal order is given or a curfew put in place." --click for full article

Des Moines city manager says free press is important as part of protest lawsuit settlement

 Via The Des Moines Register

August 27, 2024

The Des Moines city manager acknowledged the importance of the free press in a statement Tuesday on the heels of the city's settlement in a lawsuit brought by a news photographer whom police tackled and arrested during the 2020 George Floyd protests.

Des Moines leaders agreed to a mid-trial settlement last week with Mark "Ted" Nieters, a photojournalist who has covered conflict zones around the world. As part of the settlement, Nieters is set to receive $100,000, and City Manager Scott Sanders and Des Moines police spokesperson Sgt. Paul Parizek are required to issue statements about the importance of the free press.

Nieters' case stemmed from his arrest on June 1, 2020, when he was working as a freelance news photographer covering a large protest outside the Iowa Capitol. Police eventually ordered members of the crowd to leave and dispersed those who didn't, using tear gas.

Shortly afterward, as Nieters was walking away from the Capitol on Locust Street, Des Moines police officer Brandon Holtan tackled and detained him, despite Nieters telling him he was a journalist and showing him his press card, according to the lawsuit Nieters later filed against Holtan and the city.

Sanders fulfilled his requirement in a statement Tuesday, which reads:

"The City is grateful to the jury and the federal court for their time in a recent case they helped bring to a resolution. While the City Council will vote to approve the proposed settlement at its September 16 meeting, we are happy to put this case behind us and continue our important work moving the Des Moines Police Department forward in our continuing pursuit of excellence. The City acknowledges the importance of free press for our community, and the value and appreciation that the City has for the work the press does."

Link to article with video and photographs.

Former police chief who launched a raid on a Kansas newspaper office and two homes is expected to be charged with obstruction of judicial process

 

Via KHSM 41

August 5, 2024

By: Jessica McMaster

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The former police chief who launched a raid on a Kansas newspaper office and two homes is expected to be charged with obstruction of judicial process, according to two special prosecutors who released their findings on the case Monday.

While the evidence that trickled out over the past year indicated no crimes were committed by any of the people accused by Cody, this is the first public acknowledgment by outside investigators that no crimes occurred, except for the one Cody is now accused of committing. --Click for link to article

LINK | Complete KSHB 41 News coverage of Marion newspaper raid

The New York Times:

Mr. Meyer said in an interview on Monday that he was still suing the police, the sheriff and others in connection with his mother’s death and the raid on the newspaper office. He said he was thankful that Mr. Cody would be charged, but said the prosecutors’ report “glossed over a lot of wrongdoing.”

"The fact journalists were arrested for documenting events should concern all who believe in the free flow of information. "

 Via The Santa Fe New Mexican "Our View"

May 21, 2024

Journalists must be able to do their jobs

Journalists have no right to break the law in covering stories of public interest — that goes without saying even though the Constitution’s First Amendment clearly protects freedom of press. That freedom includes gathering the news, not just its publication.

Because of that protection, news reporters and photographers must be left alone to do their jobs. That’s especially true in a breaking-news situation in which impartial witness is essential. That’s one — but only one — reason police officers’ decision to arrest a reporter and photographer on the University of New Mexico campus while they documented the clearing of an encampment of student protesters is so distressing.

Independent journalist Bryant Furlow and photographer Tara Armijo-Prewitt — a married couple — were at the campus Wednesday morning to observe what likely would be the last days of the encampments. Furlow said he accompanied Armijo-Prewitt, who had been documenting the weeks-long protests, early Wednesday because UNM President Garnett Stokes had said the day before that police would be tearing the camps down.

Like reporters everywhere, Furlow wanted to be on the ground as news was happening. As with any potential clash between police and protestors, the public interest is clear. Journalists must be allowed to do their work. That did not happen last week.

According to a statement released through New Mexico In Depth — an online organization to which Furlow often contributes — the reporter gave his account of events, citing his request for information from officers on where to stand and his willingness to follow police instructions. He said he also informed officers he was a member of the media.

Nevertheless, both Furlow and Armijo-Prewitt were arrested.

The fact journalists were arrested for documenting events should concern all who believe in the free flow of information. Both state police and UNM campus police were involved in removing the encampments. Their bosses — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Stokes — should be investigating to find out why journalists doing their jobs and complying with officers were arrested.

The arrest after a reporter asked for a badge number and while photographing police actions is particularly troubling. It shows an apparent unwillingness on the part of police to have their actions documented for the public to see.

As Foundation for Open Government Executive Director Melanie Majors said, “If the media is arrested for doing their job, where does that leave the rest of us?”

The two, according to Furlow’s statement, were charged with criminal trespass and wrongful use of public property. They spent about 12 hours in custody after their arrests. Campus police made the arrests, and the correct action now is to drop the charges and apologize.

Further, given the tenor of the times — these protests are not going away — police at every level must be better educated about the rights of the media. Officers must understand they have no right to stop journalists from doing their jobs. In fact, when they do so, those officers are violating the Constitution.

There can be no freedom of the press without freedom to gather the news. Period.

 Statement from New Mexico reporter about his arrest at UNM encampment protest 

“Upon arriving on the scene, I asked officers where news media were permitted to stand to document the operation and did not receive an answer. I asked officers several times if there was a public information officer on scene with whom I could speak and was told there was not. I also inquired about who was in charge but got no response. We at all times followed instructions we received from police and stayed behind the yellow police tape. We were arrested while photographing the operation and shortly after asking an NMSP officer for his badge number and name. As I was being arrested, I said I was a member of the press repeatedly and loudly. 

“We spent approximately 12 hours in custody following our arrests. 

“We want to secure legal representation to fight the criminal charges before we speak further about our arrests.

“Thank you.” 

Columbia Student Journalists on the Front Lines of Gaza Protests

 

Via Vanity Fair

May 6, 2024

They’ve gotten a crash course in breaking news, capturing the Hamilton Hall occupation and the NYPD’s crackdown, while surviving on pizza and operating on little sleep. The students, says one professor, have “become professional journalists reporting on the biggest story right now, not only in the city, but in the nation.”

"Since the beginning of the encampment, Nina Berman, a professor and documentary photographer and filmmaker, had been doing nightly outings with students, training them in the field while also keeping them safe."

Related: Nina Berman Photographs "Columbia's Campus in Crisis: for The New Yorker

Photojournalism in the Occupied West Bank - Moderated by Nina Berman

 Via eventbrite

April 15, 2024

Three photographers with deep experience in the region will present recent work and discuss the challenges of reporting in the region, moderated by Nina Berman.

Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank have faced increased violence, detentions and land seizures by Israeli forces and settlers since October 7. Three photographers with deep experience in the region will present recent work and discuss the deteriorating situation for Palestinians in the West Bank and the challenges of reporting in the region.

Join us April 26 in the World Room for a panel with:

Salwan Georges/The Washington Post

Tanya Habjouqa/The New Yorker

Maen Hammad/Caravan Magazine

Moderated by Prof. Nina Berman, sponsored by The Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism and The Li Center for Global Journalism.

Friday, April 26 · 6 - 8pm EDT

Location: Columbia Journalism School

World Room 2950 Broadway New York, NY 10027

Tickets here

"The arrest, detention and bogus charges against journalist Brandi Morin launched by the Edmonton police should concern everyone."

Via The Toronto Star

February 1, 2024

 What charges against journalist Brandi Morin mean for Canadian democracy

Trends show a clear sign that Canada is allowing tendencies of an oppressive state where law enforcement’s action cannot be documented by independent journalists and instead they are slapped with bogus charges.

By Kiran Nazish, Contributor

The arrest, detention and bogus charges against journalist Brandi Morin launched by the Edmonton police should concern everyone. On Jan. 10, Morin was interviewing indigenous elders and people inside an encampment in Edmonton for Ricochet media, when the police raid on indigenous encampments began.

Despite showing her credentials Morin was arrested, detained and kept in a cell at the police station for hours and charged with obstruction. Later Morin told me, an officer told her he had heard of her and knew her work.

The events Morin experienced that day was not only an escalation of police encounter for a journalist doing her job, but also what seems to be a carefully thought through intervention to the press’s ability to have access when the police is using force on citizens. Is it reasonable that after the police saw Morin's press credentials and the condemnations of her arrest — which were all over social media while she had been in the police station — that the police had a reason to believe that she was "obstructing?"

Charging a journalist covering a public issue that impacts hundreds of thousands of Canadians lacks foresight and sincerity on many levels, but most importantly smells of maleficence. This is a deliberate charge to intimidate journalists covering important stories that bring vital insight into some of the most concerning and sensitive issues impacting Canadians lives today.

This is not the first time law enforcement in Canada has gotten in the way of journalistic work.

At Women Press Freedom, a New York-based advocacy group focused on press freedom and gender globally, we observe authorities impeding journalists to be an ongoing issue and unfortunately a growing trend in Canada.

Since 2019, according to Women Press Freedom, almost 70 Canadian women journalists have been intimated or harassed for doing their work: 39 of these incidents include smear campaigns and online harassment, 16 press freedom violations including assaults while on the job, and 17 of these have been violations and impediments conducted by law enforcement including police and RCMP. These numbers only reflect attacks on the press for women journalists and do not cover the overall picture, which is much more bleak.

In 2016, journalist Justin Brake was criminally charged for his coverage of an occupation by Innu and Inuit land protectors of a construction site for Muskrat Falls, a controversial $12-billion hydroelectric project in Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2021, Ian Wilms was arrested while covering a similar raid of homeless encampment. The same year journalist Amber Bracken and Micheal Toledano were arrested by RCMP while reporting on the escalating situation at Gidimt’en camp in Wet’suwet’en territory. During Fairy Creek several journalists were intimidated, harassed and impeded from reporting on the protests.

The arrest, detention and bogus charges against journalist Brandi Morin launched by the Edmonton police should concern everyone. On Jan. 10, Morin was interviewing indigenous elders and people inside an encampment in Edmonton for Ricochet media, when the police raid on indigenous encampments began. 

Despite showing her credentials Morin was arrested, detained and kept in a cell at the police station for hours and charged with obstruction. Later Morin told me, an officer told her he had heard of her and knew her work.

The events Morin experienced that day was not only an escalation of police encounter for a journalist doing her job, but also what seems to be a carefully thought through intervention to the press’s ability to have access when the police is using force on citizens. Is it reasonable that after the police saw Morin's press credentials and the condemnations of her arrest — which were all over social media while she had been in the police station — that the police had a reason to believe that she was "obstructing?" 

Charging a journalist covering a public issue that impacts hundreds of thousands of Canadians lacks foresight and sincerity on many levels, but most importantly smells of maleficence. This is a deliberate charge to intimidate journalists covering important stories that bring vital insight into some of the most concerning and sensitive issues impacting Canadians lives today. 

This is not the first time law enforcement in Canada has gotten in the way of journalistic work. 

At Women Press Freedom, a New York-based advocacy group focused on press freedom and gender globally, we observe authorities impeding journalists to be an ongoing issue and unfortunately a growing trend in Canada. 

Since 2019, according to Women Press Freedom, almost 70 Canadian women journalists have been intimated or harassed for doing their work: 39 of these incidents include smear campaigns and online harassment, 16 press freedom violations including assaults while on the job, and 17 of these have been violations and impediments conducted by law enforcement including police and RCMP. These numbers only reflect attacks on the press for women journalists and do not cover the overall picture, which is much more bleak. 

In 2016, journalist Justin Brake was criminally charged for his coverage of an occupation by Innu and Inuit land protectors of a construction site for Muskrat Falls, a controversial $12-billion hydroelectric project in Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2021, Ian Wilms was arrested while covering a similar raid of homeless encampment. The same year journalist Amber Bracken and Micheal Toledano were arrested by RCMP while reporting on the escalating situation at Gidimt’en camp in Wet’suwet’en territory. During Fairy Creek several journalists were intimidated, harassed and impeded from reporting on the protests. 

When it comes to police intimidation, impediment or arrests, we notice a consistent thread: number of journalists covering Indigenous stories and climate change-related stories dominate the chart. Brandi Morin has been targeted by RCMP and police on multiple occasions in the past few years, and in all these cases she was covering issues that impact lives of Indigenous Peoples.

These trends show a clear sign that Canada is allowing tendencies of an oppressive state where law enforcement’s action cannot be documented by independent journalists and instead they are slapped with bogus charges. These are clear intimidations, and if a reformation of these police actions are not called for now, it would harm other institutions in the country widely.

This calls for attention for all Canadian leadership, particularly those who care about this country’s democratic values. There is an urgent need for steps that ensure the police and law enforcement comply with the laws of democracy, in which journalists are not obstructed but respected and supported. 

Morin was just doing her job. It is time that the Edmonton Police takes inspiration from that and do their job by respecting freedom of the press and dropping charges against her. 

Kiran Nazish is the founding director of the New York-based Women Press Freedom and the Coalition For Women In Journalism. 

Panel Discussion: Nina Berman among journalists behind Scientific American's multimedia reporting project

 Via Columbia Graduate School of Journalism School

January 29, 2024

The U.S. is embarking on its biggest nuclear weapons production project ever which will cost taxpayers nearly $2 trillion dollars. To investigate the dangers and risks of nuclear weapons policy, Scientific American teamed up with Columbia Journalism School professors, Princeton's Program on Science and Global Security and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, to create Missiles On Our Land, a video documentary, a 5-part podcast, data visualizations and print stories.

Join us Jan 29 at Columbia Journalism School's Lecture Hall from 6pm - 8:00pm for a talk about nuclear weapons policies and risks and how to successfully report on big issue topics across multiple media platforms.

Panelists:

Jeffrey DelViscio, Chief Multimedia Editor, Scientific American

Tulika Bose, Senior Multimedia Editor, Scientific American

Nina Berman, CJS Professor, co-director of Fallout

Duy Linh Tu, CJS Professor, co-director of Fallout

Sebastien Tuinder, CJS Alum, editor of Fallout

Sébastien Phillipe, Princeton University

Ella Weber, Princeton University

Katie Watson, Brown Institute

Mark Hanson, Brown Institute

Columbia Journalism School

Lecture Hall 2950 Broadway New York, NY 10027 United States

"Journalists play an important role in holding those in power accountable...."

 

Via Brandi Morin on Twitter

January 25, 2024

"I was I was arrested on January 10 while reporting on a police raid on an Indigenous encampment in Edmonton. During the arrest of the camp’s leader I was targeted and told I had to leave the area. When I tried to assert my rights as a journalist, rights which have been upheld by high courts in two provinces, I was arrested and charged with obstruction. 

My editors and lawyers feel this charge is an attempt to send me a message. Now, I need your help to send one back. 

I hope you’ll stand with me."

Report Warns of Attempt to 'Criminalize' Newsgathering in the US

 Via VOA

December 20, 2023

WASHINGTON — At least a dozen journalists faced arrest or charges related to their newsgathering across the U.S. in 2023, with most working for local media outlets.

The incidents and their impact on the ability of journalists to cover the news are detailed in a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Based in New York, the Tracker has documented what it sees as press freedom violations inside the U.S. since 2017.

According to the Tracker, many of the cases this year involved attempts to prevent journalists from engaging in regular reporting practices — from asking questions to investigating public officials. It cited around 30 cases of journalists or media outlets being summoned and asked to identify a source or hand over reporting materials.

“What was interesting this year was an apparent criminalization of general newsgathering,” said Stephanie Sugars, the report’s author.

The number of cases of journalists arrested is lower than previous years, when the Tracker documented dozens of cases as media covered unrest and large-scale protests. Still, the findings are a concern, the nonpartisan group said.

In one case from October, police arrested a small-town Alabama newspaper publisher and a reporter for publishing an article that authorities said contained confidential grand jury evidence.

While leaking information may be illegal, it is not a crime for news outlets to publish that information, so long as the reporters are not involved in illegally obtaining the materials, press experts say.

In another case, a reporter at an Illinois newspaper was cited for asking city officials too many questions about flooding in October.

“That is normal newsgathering,” Sugars told VOA from New York.

In the Illinois case, the charges were dropped.

In a separate incident in Ohio, NewsNation correspondent Evan Lambert was ordered to stop a live broadcast while Governor Mike DeWine was giving a press briefing in February. Officers then forced Lambert to the ground and arrested him.

The governor expressed concern and said he was not aware of the incident at the time it occurred.

Lambert filed a lawsuit in November over the incident.

Meanwhile, an Arizona judge in April granted a restraining order against a local reporter after the journalist looked into a state senator’s residency claims. Another judge later rejected the restraining order. And in July, two California reporters were accused by a local police union of stalking for trying to contact a police officer at her home.

“Attempts to criminalize routine journalistic activities, such as contacting public officials or the subjects of stories, send a chill through the heart of newsgathering,” Sugars wrote in the report.

It’s unclear whether police and officials in these incidents were unaware of what constitutes normal newsgathering or whether they just didn’t care, Sugars said.

But, she added, that distinction also misses the point.

“Whether they know that it is general, basic newsgathering or not is less important than the fact that they just don’t like it and are using the tools at their disposal to retaliate,” Sugars said.

Another factor that links many of the cases in the Press Freedom Tracker’s report is that most incidents took place at the local level, affecting smaller or regional publications.

That’s likely a byproduct of the decline of local news coverage, according to Sugars.

The U.S. has lost more than one fourth of its newspapers since 2005 and is set to lose one third of all its roughly 6,000 remaining print newspapers — mostly weeklies — by 2025, according to a report by Northwestern University’s Local News Initiative.

“That lack of constant scrutiny has created an atmosphere where local officials feel like they are no longer responsible for answering questions,” Sugars said.

First Amendment experts say such violations make it harder for journalists to do their jobs.

“If you’ve got these instances of law enforcement overreach, again, it impairs the press’s watchdog role," said Gabe Rottman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, or RCFP.

Rottman, who is director of the RCFP’s Technology and Press Freedom Project, said that it is important for government officials to understand the role journalists play in their community.

Fewer journalists were arrested or charged in the United States in 2023 than in the past few years, the Tracker report found.

Journalists in America must be allowed to safely cover protests

 Via Columbia Journalism Review

June 20, 2023

Journalists in America must be allowed to safely cover protests

(Note: Monroe Gallery presents "Good Trouble", an exhibition of photographs that register the power of individuals to inspire movements and illustrates the power of protest from a deeply human perspective. Through this exhibition, we are reminded of the power of photographs to propel action and inspire change. June 30 - September 17, 2023)

A week after the May 1 strangulation death of Jordan Neely, demonstrators assembled outside the Broadway-Lafayette subway station for a candlelight vigil. Freelance photographer Stephanie Keith was there to cover events, and when police began to arrest protesters, she moved into the street to get the shot. Soon Keith was in handcuffs, being led away by two officers, facing charges of disorderly conduct. 

“I was dumbfounded. I thought it was a mistake,” Keith told me. “I really didn’t understand why this was happening to me.” 

Keith’s arrest might be a relatively minor incident in America’s press freedom landscape if it were not the case that police routinely impede the rights of the press to cover protests and demonstrations.

I spent 2022 as a fellow at the Knight First Amendment Institute researching the issue. I spoke with dozens of journalists across the country, with leading experts on policing, with First Amendment scholars, and with the police themselves (none would speak on the record). I pored over data from the US Press Freedom Tracker, and researched the history of police-press interactions from the civil rights era to the present day. My report “Covering Democracy: Protests, Police, and the Press” is out today. 

The report documents a troubling reality: despite the protection of the First Amendment, the right of journalists to cover protests has not been secure. As the Associated Press’s assistant general counsel Brian Barrett explained, what matters most “is what a police officer decides at two in the morning in a heated environment.”

In most instances journalists and protesters themselves enjoy the same rights, including the right to photograph and otherwise record events, so long as they do not interfere with the activities of the police. But by tradition, journalists covering protests have sought to distinguish themselves in some way—by standing off to the side, but wearing credentials or distinctive clothing, or by verbally identifying themselves to police. In most instances police respected the role of the press and allowed journalists to do their job. But where the institutional relationships have broken down, and particularly when police employ force, journalists have been arrested and attacked in significant numbers. 

The issue came to a head most recently during the summer of 2020, when Americans took to the streets in record numbers following the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis. According to the US Press Freedom Tracker, 129 journalists were arrested or detained while covering the protests during 2020, and hundreds more were attacked or assaulted by police, in some cases resulting in serious injuries. 

One of the most notorious episodes occurred on May 30, 2020, the day after CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez was arrested on live television. That evening, as police in Minneapolis enforced a citywide curfew, they swept through a group of about two dozen journalists who were standing apart from protesters, wearing credentials and carrying professional camera equipment. Police attacked them using less lethal munitions, including pepper spray, and shoved several who tried to escape the onslaught over a six-foot retaining wall. 

Ed Ou, a Canadian war photographer who had moved to the US because he wanted to work in a country where the rights of journalists are respected, was hit in the face with what he believes was a flash-bang grenade; he was seriously injured. Ou later told me that because of the violence and suddenness of the police response in Minneapolis, “my radar for what’s safe has been completely fried.” 

Ou decided to participate in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the police and state and local authorities on behalf of journalists who had been attacked and injured. That case, Goyette v. City of Minneapolis, resulted not only in monetary compensation for the plaintiffs but a settlement requiring police to refrain from attacking or arresting journalists. A scathing Justice Department report on the Minneapolis Police Department released Friday noted that “officers regularly retaliate against members of the press—particularly by using force.”

Police in Minneapolis and across the country often claim they can’t possibly distinguish between journalists and protesters when everyone has a cellphone. But the First Amendment requires that they do so, as affirmed in the Goyette settlement and a federal court ruling in another case, Index Newspapers v. City of Portland. In that instance, the court determined that police must ensure that journalists are not subject to violence, arrest, and dispersal and directed officers to identify journalists based on observable behavior, often called a “functional test.”

Police at times have resisted that standard because they allege that protesters falsely claim to be journalists in order to evade arrest. But my research indicates that such behavior, while troubling, is exceedingly rare. Much more common, and thoroughly documented, are instances in which police attack, assault, or arrest journalists who are clearly identifiable and engaging in newsgathering. In one instance Australian correspondent Amelia Brace and her crew were assaulted live on camera by US Park Police while covering a protest outside the White House in June 2020. Brace later testified before Congress that she was shocked by the violence of the attack and that she had expected to work “freely and safely…in the world’s greatest democracy.”

Brace is right. The media has a critical role in ensuring that all First Amendment rights are protected, including the right to assembly and speech. The recent arrest of Stephanie Keith drives home the fact that, as Keith herself put it, “the cops are so arbitrary, and they have so much power over you.” As we enter a polarizing election session in which some of America’s messy politics are likely to play out in the streets, police across the country must ensure that journalists are able to document protests without the risk of attack or arrest. 

Joel Simon is the founding director of the Journalism Protection Initiative at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

Where the U.S. stands on World Press Freedom Day 2023 (May 3)

 

Via Freedom Forum

Where the U.S. stands on World Press Freedom Day 2023

As the United Nations marks 30 years of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, it’s worth remembering how a mere four words in the First Amendment – “or of the press” – is the basis for press freedom in the United States.

Despite having prime constitutional billing, U.S. news outlets and journalists don’t enjoy the freest press conditions in the world. The U.S. doesn’t even rank in the top 20.

Wait, what?

Reporters Without Borders (known by their French initials, RSF) ranks the U.S. as 42 out of 180 countries. But that is up two spots from the 2021 ranking.

As RSF’s annual report puts it: “In the United States, once considered a model for press freedom and free speech, press freedom violations are increasing at a troubling rate.”

Similarly, global advocacy organization Freedom House gives the U.S. a three out of four on press freedom conditions. Not the worst, but there’s room to improve.

Certainly the U.S. isn’t North Korea, which RSF consistently ranks last.

Nor is it Russia, where the recent arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and ongoing treatment of imprisoned opposition leader, advocate of free expression and 2023 Freedom Forum Free Expression Award honoree Alexey Navalny makes the country’s press freedom ranking of 155 out of 180 countries seem too generous.

U.S. press freedom black holes

WEST VIRGINIA PUBLIC BROADCASTING

West Virginia Public Broadcasting, licensed to the state government, fired reporter Amelia Ferrell Knisely last December. The reporter claimed it was after pressure from state officials who didn’t like her reporting on accusations against a state agency and its treatment of people with disabilities.

NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik covered the fallout, reporting: “Interviews with 20 people with direct knowledge of events at West Virginia Public Broadcasting indicate Knisely's involuntary departure from her position as a part-time reporter was not an aberration but part of a years-long pattern of mounting pressure on the station from Gov. Jim Justice's administration and some state legislators.”

More than 200 local public radio stations, members of the NPR network, are independently owned and operated. Those stations are nonprofits, often licensed to public entities, such as universities, school districts, or in a few cases, state governments.

Whether these stations are licensed to an independent nonprofit or to a public entity, their editorial independence is what makes them essential and reliable news sources. Government funding of any amount does not equal editorial control. When interference happens, it undermines public trust in a free press.

FLORIDA LICENSE PROPOSAL

A bill introduced this year in Florida immediately drew the ire of free press groups – and Gov. Ron DeSantis – for seeking to make “bloggers who write about elected officials to register with the state.”

The bill doesn’t target journalists working at established news outlets, but the spirit runs afoul of the First Amendment.

“53% would support a special licensing process for journalists, like that for doctors and lawyers – perhaps not recognizing press freedom is a right for all and that licensing would limit this freedom,” according to Freedom Forum’s 2022 Where America Stands survey.

Proposals like this aren’t new, particularly in the past 20+ years as publishing and sharing information by people who don’t work for traditional news outlets has become easier. The First Amendment protects more than just “the press,” an amorphous term more than 200 years on. It protects every person’s freedom to talk, write, or share opinions about government or any topic. Attempts to license people, be they journalists, bloggers or your neighbor complaining on Nextdoor will always draw scrutiny as being unconstitutional.

 THREE AFFILIATED TRIBES

Despite the First Amendment’s broad protections for U.S. journalists, those freedoms generally don’t extend to sovereign Native American nations and their tribal-owned media. Federal and state freedom of information laws broadly guarantee anyone can request and receive communications of public officials and other government documents. But these laws don’t cover tribal governments.

For example, the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota have been accused of multiple transparency violations of its own constitution and bylaws, according to the Society of Professional Journalists.

These violations caused the Society of Professional Journalists to give the tribal nation its annual Black Hole Award, which “highlights the most heinous violations of the public’s right to know.”

Journalists who work for tribal-owned media and groups like the Native American Journalists Association and Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance have been pushing tribal governments to extend free press protections and broaden transparency, press access and freedom of information within their sovereign nations.

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Save the date: FaultLines: Democracy: A conference on building a democratic press

 Via Columbia University Journalism School

Tuesday, April 25, 2023 10:00 AM -

Wednesday, April 26, 2023 3:00 PM

Pulitzer Hall, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

Room/Area: Jamail Lecture Hall

Save the date for this critical, two-day conversation about the role of a free press in a thriving democracy and its responsibility when a democracy is under assault. This signature event from the Columbia Journalism School will feature historians, journalists, policy makers and others to assess the state of the press in America and provide a roadmap for what happens next. A detailed agenda and a list of confirmed speakers to be announced soon.

For more details, go to democracy.cjr.org

Columbia University is committed to protecting the health and safety of its community. To that end, all visiting alumni and guests must meet the University requirement of full vaccination status in order to attend in-person events. Vaccination cards may be checked upon entry to all venues.

RSVP here.

By RSVP'ing, I attest that I meet the University’s vaccination requirement for event attendance and that I will be prepared to provide proof day of.

DAY ONE: TUESDAY, APRIL 25, Lecture Hall, Columbia Journalism School

10 a.m. Welcome by President Lee C. Bollinger, Columbia University

10:15 a.m.-11:15 a.m.

America 2030

Moderator: Adam Serwer, The Atlantic

Annette Gordon-Reed, historian

Robert Kagan, Brookings Institution

Kathy Roberts Forde, author

Jeff Chang, journalist

11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Democracy and the World

Masha Gessen, The New Yorker

Jodie Ginsberg, Committee to Protect Journalists

Sheila Coronel, Columbia Journalism School

LUNCH: The World Room, Columbia Journalism School

 1:35 p.m.-2:30 p.m.

Journalism and Democracy

Moderator: Jelani Cobb, Columbia Journalism School

Errin Haines, the 19th

George Packer, The Atlantic

Margaret Sullivan, Guardian US columnist

Graciela Mochkofsky, City University of New York

Charles Whitaker, Medill School of Journalism

2:40 p.m.- 3:40 p.m.

Policy and the Press

Moderator: Jonathan Capehart, MSNBC

Joe Kahn, The New York Times

Sally Buzbee, The Washington Post

Kevin Merida, The Los Angeles Times

Alessandra Galloni, Reuters

Olatunde C. Johnson, Columbia Law School

DAY TWO: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26

10:05 a.m.- 11:05 a.m.

Saving America

Moderator: Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post

Subrata De, Vice

Zeynep Tufekci, Columbia Journalism School

Eric Foner, historian

11:10 a.m.-11:20 a.m.

Video message from President Barack Obama

11:25 a.m.- 12:25 p.m.

Covering Vulnerable Communities

Moderator: Duy Linh Tu, Columbia Journalism School

Nina Alvarez, Columbia Journalism School

Nina Berman, Columbia Journalism School

June Cross, Columbia Journalism School

Daniel Alarcon, Columbia Journalism School

LUNCH: World Room, Columbia Journalism School

1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m.

Democracy Town Hall

Host: Maria Hinojosa, Futuro Media

Event Contact Information:

Kyle Pope

klp2146@columbia.edu

Ed Kashi Artist Talk & Gallery Reception at Syracuse University Palitz Gallery in NYC

 

Via Syracuse University

Join Ed Kashi '79 for an artist talk and gallery reception celebrating the new Palitz Gallery exhibition "Ed Kashi: Advocacy Journalism."

Monday, March 27, 2023

6:00 PM to 8:00 PM ET

Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery Syracuse University Lubin House

11 East 61st Street

New York, NY 10065

Register here

Grant Baldwin's 2019 Pride Festival image featured: Officials in counties outside Charlotte censored LGBTQ+ content. Can they do that?

 Via The Charlotte Observer

August 18, 2022

The Gaston County manager ordered this photograph of two newlywed men kissing at the 2019 Charlotte Pride Parade & Festival pulled from a photography exhibit at the Gaston County Museum, according to a county statement and the photographer, Grant Baldwin/Grant Baldwin Photography

"Before the pandemic put a pause to the Queen City’s in-person festivities, Charlotte Pride hired local photojournalist Grant Baldwin to document its 2019 parade. Among the shots, Baldwin snapped a portrait of two men — Justin Colasacco and Bren Hipp — kissing in celebration just after getting engaged.

As a rainbow-festooned gaggle of cheers erupted behind them, Baldwin thought the shot would be perfect for the Gaston County Museum’s roundup of artistic and documentary photographs. Museum officials agreed initially. They accepted the photo and displayed it as part of the summer 2022 “Into the Darkroom” exhibit, Baldwin said. Ultimately, county manager Kim Eagle told museum staff to replace the photograph with one “more considerate of differing viewpoints in the community,” county spokesman Gaub said. It remains shelved, but the removal has sparked calls for more LGBTQ recognition in the county. It garnered praise for Baldwin and the couple elsewhere. The photo will take a place of honor in a New Mexico exhibit soon. “It’s reaffirmed in me that there’s still more work to be done to live up to the motto of Gastonia being an All-American city – live, work and play – when a subset of the population is not viewed as equals,” Charlotte Pride spokesman and Gastonia resident Clark Simon said. “So there’s more work to be done.”

Read more here

Grant Baldwin's photograph is featured in the exhibition "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism", on view through September 18, 2022.