This World Press Freedom Day, American journalists are under attack

Via Freedom Of The Press Foundation

For years, World Press Freedom Day on May 3 has helped spotlight global press freedom violations. It’s a day to demand justice for journalists murdered in Gaza and Lebanon, or to celebrate the release of wrongfully detained reporters like Ahmed Shihab-Eldin.

Holding foreign regimes accountable for press freedom is essential. But this year, the U.S. needs to take a hard look in the mirror, too.

Since last year’s World Press Freedom Day, our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented hundreds of press freedom violations in the United States, the equivalent of more than one per day. Taken together, these incidents are evidence of an unprecedented, coordinated assault on press freedom being led by the highest levels of our government.

From the streets of Minneapolis to the halls of the Pentagon, the Trump administration is dismantling the First Amendment right to gather and report the news.

Criminalizing the messenger

The majority of press freedom incidents cataloged by the Tracker since last May 3 are of journalists being assaulted and arrested while covering protests.

Most reporters arrested at demonstrations have their charges dropped later. But not journalists Don Lemon, Georgia Fort, and Junn Bollman. They now face bogus charges under federal prosecution for engaging in obviously constitutionally protected reporting while covering a protest at a St. Paul, Minnesota, church in January.

They’re not the only journalists being prosecuted for covering anti-immigration enforcement protests in Minnesota. Photographer John Abernathy — who was pictured tossing his camera to another photographer to protect it, while being surrounded and arrested by federal agents at a different protest in a Minneapolis suburb last January — is also facing federal criminal charges.

Targeting routine reporting

Outside the context of protests, multiple federal agencies are also trying to redefine routine journalism as wrong or illegal.

Perhaps most notoriously, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tried to ban reporters from the Pentagon unless they signed what amounts to a loyalty pledge promising not to ask sources for information. Even after a court said the ban (and a subsequent rewrite) was unconstitutional, the government continues to fight for the right to exclude reporters who aren’t interested in acting as Pentagon stenographers.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and former Attorney General Pam Bondi have tried to chill reporting by accusing journalists of “doxxing” or fomenting violence against federal immigration agents by naming them or photographing them in public. They’ve threatened to prosecute CNN for reporting on an ICE-watching app and coerced app stores into removing that software, a clear violation of the Constitution.

At the FBI, Director Kash Patel launched a retaliatory “stalking” investigation into New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson because Williamson did her job: reaching out to Patel’s girlfriend Alexis Wilkins to ask for a comment on reporting that Patel was using government resources on Wilkins’ behalf. Even the Department of Justice thought that was too much, concluding there was no legal basis for the investigation of Williamson.

But perhaps no government official has done more to target journalism on Trump’s behalf than Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr. By threatening to punish broadcasters for reporting and editing news, and encouraging media mergers meant to benefit the Trump administration, Carr has shown he’s willing to trade the First Amendment (and whatever dignity he has left considering he wears a gilded bust of Trump as a lapel pin) for political points.

Waging war on whistleblowers

The Trump administration is also moving aggressively to shut down journalists’ relationships with their sources.

In January, the FBI raided the home of Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson, the “federal government whisperer” who’d written about the hundreds of her confidential sources from within the government. When the agency asked a court for the search warrant allowing the raid, the government purposefully omitted any mention of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, a federal law that prohibits such raids in almost all circumstances.

More recently, the DOJ used the Espionage Act to charge Courtney Williams, a former Army employee who spoke to reporter Seth Harp about sexual harassment and discrimination in the military. Like most Espionage Act cases involving reporters and sources, this case doesn’t seem to be about national security. It’s about hiding government misconduct by retaliating against journalists and sources who expose it.
A pattern of persecution

This is only the tip of the iceberg. We haven’t even gotten into the SLAPP lawsuits, the attacks on immigrant journalists, the threats to jail journalists who refuse to burn sources, the yanking of funding from public media, and so much more.

In other words, the U.S. is rapidly joining the ranks of the world’s worst press freedom offenders.

But it’s not too late to fight back.

Newsrooms can sue over press freedom violations and win. Lawmakers can reform the Espionage Act and Privacy Protection Act, and pass a federal shield law protecting journalists and their sources. Journalists can and should write and speak out about press freedom violations. The public can take action to demand that the Trump administration stop treating the First Amendment like a suggestion.

The United States can’t lead the world in defending press freedom on World Press Freedom Day when it’s actively dismantling it at home. It’s time to stop asking the Trump administration to respect the First Amendment. We need to use the courts, Congress, and the power of the people to force it.

See the exhibition Imagine A World Without Photojournalism

Global press freedom falls to lowest level in 25 years, RSF warns

Via France 24

April 30, 2026

Freedom of the press has fallen to its lowest level in a quarter of a century, NGO Reporters without Borders (RSF) warned Thursday as it released its annual global ranking. The group reported a worldwide decline in media freedom, citing factors ranging from US President Donald Trump’s “systematic” attacks on the press to actions in Saudi Arabia, where a journalist was executed in 2025.

The NGO's annual ranking, which was established in 2002, uses a five-point scale to asses the level of press freedom in a country, ranging from "very serious" to "good".

This year's index reveals a global trend towards restricting press freedoms.

"For the first time in the index’s 25-year history, more than half the world’s countries now fall into the 'difficult' or 'very serious' categories for press freedom," RSF said.

The proportion of the population living in a country where the press freedom situation is "good" has plummeted, falling from 20% to "less than 1%", it said.

Only seven countries in northern Europe are ranked "good", with Norway receiving the highest rating. France ranks 25th, with a ‘"satisfactory" score.

“In 25 years, the average score for all the countries studied has never been so low,” the NGO said.

The United States, received a "problematic" rating and has dropped seven places to 64th, between Botswana and Panama.

The organisation said US President Donald Trump's attacks on the press had become “systematic” resulting in such incidents as the detention and subsequent deportation of the Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara, who was reporting on the arrests of migrants in the United States.

Trump has also overseen a drastic reduction in funding for US international broadcasting.

RSF also highlighted the dramatic falls of El Salvador (143rd), which has dropped 105 places since 2014 following the launch of a war against the Maras criminal gangs, and Georgia(135th), which has fallen 75 places since 2020 due to an “escalation of repression”.

The sharpest decline in 2026 is attributed to Niger (120th, down 37 places) due to the “the deterioration of press freedom in the Sahel over several years”, amid “attacks by armed groups and (the) ruling juntas”, RSF said.

Saudi Arabia (176th, down 14 places), where the columnist Turki al-Jasser was executed by the state in June – “a unique occurrence in the world” – sits alongside Russia, Iran and China at the very bottom of the ranking, which is rounded out by Eritrea (180th).

By contrast, Syria (141st) has leapt 36 places following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Behind the Lens With Ron Haviv

 Via Human Rights Educators USA

Behind the Lens


Go beyond the headlines with our speakers as they share the challenges, risks, and defining moments of documenting ICE and pivotal current events shaping our world today.

Stephanie Heimann – Photo Director at The New Republic, a veteran visual editor specializing in politics, global issues, and the environment.

Ron Haviv – Emmy-nominated filmmaker and award-winning photojournalist, co-founder of VII, whose work on conflict and human rights has shaped global conversations and appeared worldwide.

April 25th, 10am- 11am EDT

Register:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQOuy4AW0qqDa8QZRqV8yIPGoI2QFXYlC5CGH_mdlnpTmCOQ/viewform

Related: Friday, April 24 at 5:30PM Photojournalism: Witness + Vision   

Photographers Giles Clarke, Ron Haviv and Shelby Lee Adams join moderator Rick Smolan for a conversation on the evolving role of photojournalism and documentary practice today. Reflecting on the power and responsibility of the image, the panel considers how personal vision, ethics and context shape the stories photographers tell—and how those stories resonate in an age of constant visual exchange.

World Affairs Lecture Series: Unbroken: Solidarity Through the Lens with Professor Nina Berman On April 23

 Via Fashion Institute of Technology

In this virtual World Affairs Lecture, Columbia University Professor Nina Berman will be in conversation with Dr. Souzeina Mushtaq, assistant professor of Communication and Media Studies at University of Wisconsin–River Falls, on the topic of “Unbroken: Solidarity Through the Lens.”

Lifelong New Yorker and photojournalist Nina Berman draws on decades of documenting the city’s defining upheavals. From the depths of the AIDS crisis to the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the surge of COVID-19 and waves of protest, to illuminate the moments of collective care that rise amid crises. With a curated selection of photographs, she reflects on how New Yorkers forge bonds of compassion and mutual support even as neighborhoods transform. Berman weaves personal recollection with powerful imagery to reveal that resilience and community are as fundamental to New York’s identity as its skyline. Her work has been exhibited at more than 100 international venues from the Whitney Museum Biennial to the concrete security walls at the Za’atari refugee camp. Public collections include the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of the City of New York, the Harvard Art Museums and the Bibliothèque nationale de France among others. Berman is the recipient of a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship.

The Department of Social Sciences’ World Affairs Lecture Series fulfills FIT’s mission to foster an understanding of diverse cultures and politics within the international as well as domestic perspectives. It also embraces, supports, and expands upon the president’s campuswide initiative on civility. Find an archive of previous lectures online.

Join using this webinar link:
https://fitnyc.webex.com/fitnyc/j.php?MTID=mc120037050d78d810efa3827321be861

Webinar number: 2864 358 2945
Webinar password: fitnyc (348692 when dialing from a phone or video system)

Or join by phone:
+1-646-992-2010 United States Toll (New York City)

This virtual event is free and open to the public; join using the Webex link and use the password fitnyc.

Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story at the Taos Film Festival April 24 & 26

 

Via Taos Film Festival

PHOTOGRAPHIC JUSTICE: THE CORKY LEE STORY is coming to Taos! All is Well Pictures LLC announces their screening at the Taos Film Festival in Taos, NM.

The award winning documentary on legendary photographer CORKY LEE coming April 24 and 26. “Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story” premiered at DOC NYC and has screened in festivals from Hong Kong to Hawaii. It is director Jennifer Takaki’s first film; the team also includes editor Linda Hattendorf, who is a resident of Taos and a board member of the Taos County Historical Society.

"It's not important that people remember me. It's more important that they remember my photos."
- Corky Lee

A fierce advocate for inclusion of the Asian American Pacific Islander community in the national discourse, Corky Lee consistently challenged stereotypes and discrimination with his camera. He documented AAPI activism in the United States long before the Asian American Movement was acknowledged by the press.

Lee's images have played a key role in highlighting the many struggles and contributions of Asian American Pacific Islanders in modern American history, and in advocating for positive change and advancement of this often-overlooked community.

The film weaves together rare verite footage of Corky's daily life in New York; interviews with Corky and noted historians, authors, actors, and activists in his circle; archival footage; illustrations; and most importantly a rich trove of Corky's stunning photographs spanning 50 years.

Friday’s 7:30pm screening at the Harwood Museum will be followed by a Q&A with Director Jennifer Takaki and Editor Linda Hattendorf.

Passes and tickets here

 Via The Stranger

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Stranger 🗞 (@thestrangerseattle)

Seattle-based photographer Nate Gowdy went to Minneapolis twice this year, to document the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Metro Surge and photographed the civilian efforts to protect their communities from the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement. “When I arrived in Minneapolis, I expected to find overarmed agents, tear gas clouds, traumatized civilians, and I did. I also found people walking their dogs, running errands, meeting for dinner,” he wrote. “Daily life continued, but it was unmistakably altered. Community events were canceled. It came through in every conversation with residents: weekend plans became risk assessments about the federal agents operating in residential neighborhoods without visible name tags or badge numbers. Tension lived in lowered voices and furtive glances toward any vehicle with tinted windows.” Read more at The Stranger.

Video Produced by Dave Quantic. Assistant Editor Danielle Driehaus.

All images courtesy of Nate Gowdy

Gabriela Campos Photographs Albuquerque Lowriders For National Geographic

 Via National Geographic

April 9, 2026

A once-banned Mexican American tradition is making a comeback

Lowriding had been outlawed across the U.S. Now, it’s making a comeback — and nowhere more fashionably than in Albuquerque, thanks to a passionate group of locals.

The 1961 Chevrolet Impala leaps skyward with a bounce, chrome flashing in the New Mexico sun. At the wheel, Angelica Griego presses a switch on the dash and again sends the car bunny-hopping, leaping a couple of feet clear off the ground. Her window is down, two-inch hot pink nails resting casually on the doorframe, strands of cherry-red tinsel glinting in her hair. In the back seat, I grip the plush leather and do my best to look unfazed.

“Nice car!” hollers a man from across the street, followed by a long, appreciative whistle. Behind oversized sunglasses, Angelica remains cool as a cucumber, the honeyed tones of 1960s crooner Brenton Wood drifting through her speakers. We’ve been cruising through the heart of Albuquerque along Central Avenue, home to the longest urban stretch of Route 66, for barely 10 minutes and already he’s the third such vocal admirer. Others snap photos, eager to capture a fleeting glimpse of pure Americana rolling past.

I’ve come to the state’s largest city to delve into the world of lowriding, a tradition of driving low-slung cars, often intricately customised and lavished in symbolism, that’s part of Mexican American culture. It first emerged in the 1940s in the South West, among communities who faced social marginalisation and drew on the bright colours and intricate designs of traditional Mexican aesthetics. In New Mexico, where nearly half the population identifies as of Mexican descent — the highest percentage of Hispanic residents in the US — it became as much a state symbol as green chilli. --continue to full article

Iconic photo ‘The Soiling of Old Glory’ still makes an impact 50 years later; will be featured in "America The Beautiful" exhibit

Via WGBH

By Diane Adame

April 3, 2026

This April 5, 1976 photo of a white teenager, Joseph Rakes, assaulting a Black man, lawyer and civil rights activist Ted Landsmark, with a flagpole won the Pulitzer Prize for spot photography. The photo was taken during a protest against court-ordered desegregation busing.

Stanley Forman (used with permission)

It has been 50 years since the Pulitzer-Prize winning photo “The Soiling of Old Glory” was taken as a busing desegregation protest erupted throughout City Hall Plaza in Boston.

The photo, which was taken on April 5, 1976, shows a young white man gripping an American flag and aiming it at a young Black man during the protest. The image drew national attention for how it vividly captured racial unrest during the busing crisis in the 1970s.

“The photograph has had significant impact over the decades because it was taken during a bicentennial year where the country was celebrating a number of democratic principles which in fact were being contradicted by what the photo depicts,” said Theodore “Ted” Landsmark, the Black man captured in the photograph.

Stanley Forman, the newspaper photographer who took the photo for the Boston Herald American, still remembers that day.

“It was a Monday… I asked the editor, Alvin Saley, what was going on. He told me there was a demonstration — we went to demonstrations every day — it was an anti-busing demonstration at City Hall,” he said. “I asked if I could go to it, and he said, ‘Sure.’”

The protest was one of many happening in Boston at the time ever since the city began busing students outside of their neighborhoods in 1974 in an effort, mandated by the courts, to desegregate schools.

Forman said he was switching his camera lens when he saw a group of white student protesters walking through the plaza.

“I saw a couple of Black men taking the turn, coming up from Court Street to come onto the plaza, and they were attacked,” he said.

“Ted got the worst of it,” he said. “ They threw things at them, they kicked them, knocked them down and in the end, Joseph Rakes, who was holding the flagpole, whacked him in the nose.”

Landsmark said he was on my way to a meeting in Boston City Hall to discuss affirmative action efforts to bring more employment to people of color in the city.

“I thought that if I simply continued to walk straight, I’d be able to get into City Hall without really encountering the front edge of the demonstrators,” he told GBH in an interview remembering the incident. “But a number of the students walked by me and then several circled back, yelling racial epithets at me.”

Michael Curry, a member of the NAACP national board of directors and head of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, said the photo continues to have an impact because it didn’t happen that long ago.

“It made it even more clear for a generation of us that Boston was a tale of two cities, one where people came for opportunity if you were Irish, Italian, Polish, and Jewish,” Curry said, “And another city that had also resisted black political, economic and educational progress in the city.”

Landsmark said he never anticipated that the photo would still be a topic of discussion all these years later.

“Many of the issues that were raised by that photo remain a salient issue, and — unfortunately — unresolved today,” he said. “My hope would be that looking back at it a half century later, we would reflect on the amount of work that remains to be done in order to achieve racial equality in the United States in this year.”

Forman said the photo often gets compared to more recent pictures racial tensions in the U.S.

“The picture gets resurrected every few years because of something happening in this country,” said Forman. “Thankfully, it hasn’t been outdone yet, but nothing lasts forever. Although this picture I think will last the test of time.”

"The Soiling of Old Glory" will be featured in "America The Beautiful", an exhibition of compelling and provocative photographs illustrating America, American life, and the American people as the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday amid the erosion of civil rights, human rights, and democratic norms May 23 - April 9, 2026 at Monroe Gallery of Photography.

She Shot Factories, Dictators and History – Up Close

Via The Story Exchange

March 31, 2026

By Victoria Flexner

The groundbreaking photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White grabbed her camera and headed to the frontlines.

Editors Note: In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing profiles of influential women in journalism.

Margaret Bourke-White is arguably one of the most influential photojournalists of the 20th century. Over a four-decade career, she photographed factories and skyscrapers, world wars, poverty in the American South and political violence across the globe. She famously photographed Mahatma Ghandi hours before he was assassinated, and captured a rare smiling image of Joseph Stalin. Along the way, she blazed trails for women in the media, becoming the first female photographer for LIFE Magazine, the first Western photographer allowed in the Soviet Union and one of the first journalists to document the Nazi concentration camps in 1945.

Born in 1904 in New York City, Bourke-White studied at several universities, including Cornell, where she began serious experiments with photography. She discovered that the camera could translate her fascination with machines, structures, and patterns into striking visual images (many of which are now owned by the Museum of Modern Art).

In the late 1920s, Bourke-White opened a studio in Cleveland, Ohio, and began specializing in industrial subjects, such as the Otis Steel mill. Undaunted by the difficulties of photographing in physically challenging conditions, where molten heat could literally melt her film, she documented steel production and American factories. She quickly attracted national attention and corporate clients.

The publisher Henry Luce hired Bourke-White in 1929 as the first staff photographer for his new business magazine Fortune. There, Bourke-White produced ambitious photographic essays on American industry, architecture and economic life. While her work demonstrated the immense power of American industry, Bourke-White also chose to expose the human cost of technical advancement – particularly in the American South.

In the mid-1930s, she worked with novelist Erskine Caldwell (whom she would later marry and divorce) to document the lives of poor sharecroppers and rural families in the Dust Bowl. The resulting photos became the book, You Have Seen Their Faces, which was published in 1937. Portraits of stoic subjects, and landscapes of desolate farms and makeshift homes, drew attention to the profound inequalities of the era. Historians note that her use of the photographic essay—sequenced images that built a narrative—became a hallmark of her style and a model for later documentary work in film and journalism.

By 1936, Luce was getting ready to launch his next venture, LIFE Magazine, which would be centered around visual storytelling. Bourke-White became the magazine’s first female photojournalist, and her image of Fort Peck Dam in Montana graced LIFE’s inaugural cover. Bourke-White worked for LIFE until the late 1950s, becoming one of the magazine’s defining visual voices. 

Early on at LIFE, Bourke-White was assigned to photograph industrialization in the Soviet Union, a project that would see her make a number of trips behind the Iron Curtain at a time when access to Russia was extremely guarded. Bourke-White somehow managed to obtain official permission to travel through the country’s factories and construction sites, producing images of steel mills, the construction of the Dnieper Dam, but also snapshots of everyday life, like peasant women eating Borscht. Her most notable visit came in 1941 at the beginning of World War II, when Moscow came under Nazi attack – Bourke-White was there covering the invasion. It was during this visit to the Soviet Union that she photographed Stalin himself. 

According to The New York Times, Bourke-White wrote of that meeting, 

“I made up my mind that I wouldn’t leave without getting a picture of Stalin smiling…I went virtually berserk trying to make that great stone face come alive…I got down on my hands and knees on the floor and tried out all kinds of crazy postures searching for a good camera angle. Stalin looked down at the way I was squirming and writhing and for the space of a lightning flash he smiled—and I got my picture. Probably, he had never seen a girl photographer before and my weird contortions amused him.”

During World War II, Bourke-White’s career entered a new, perilous phase, as she became the first American female war photojournalist. She covered the siege of Moscow, flew on bombing missions over North Africa, and later accompanied General George Patton’s Third Army into Germany. She survived torpedo attacks at sea, enemy fire, and a helicopter crash, earning the nickname “Maggie the Indestructible” from her colleagues at LIFE. Her photographs of the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp—gaunt survivors, piles of corpses, the stark infrastructure of genocide—were among the first images to confront the American public with the full horror of Nazi atrocities.

In the late 1940s, Bourke-White’s attention turned toward the upheavals of decolonization and racial injustice. She covered the 1947 Partition of British India into the new nations of India and Pakistan, producing graphic images of mass migration and communal violence. She also photographed Gandhi by his spinning wheel only hours before his assassination in 1948. Shortly afterward, she reported from South Africa, documenting the early years of apartheid. She later covered the Korean War for LIFE.

In the 1950s, Bourke-White’s output slowed as she began to suffer from Parkinson’s disease. Even as her health declined, her work continued to circulate widely in books, exhibitions, and magazine retrospectives, cementing her reputation. She died in 1971 at the age of 67. 

Today, historians credit Bourke-White with helping invent the modern photographic essay. Her photos are not just works of art, but important artifacts in their own right. By capturing war, conflict and modernization from the front lines, Bourke-White created some of the most valuable visual documentation of the 20th century.   Full article here

Margaret Bourke-White: Photojournalist is on exhibit through April 26, 2026

A country full of contradictions. 250 years of the USA. Mark Peterson

 A country full of contradictions. 250 years of the USA. - laif

Via LAIF

March 28, 2026

Mark Peterson

2026 brings with it two dates that are hard to ignore: 250 years of the USA. And Donald Trump turns 80 – in the middle of his second term in office.

What do these dates mean? What do they say about the state of this country? We asked photographers from our partner agency Redux.

We start with Mark Peterson, one of New York's most respected photojournalists. We asked him for his assessment of the state of American society and the future of photojournalism.

Mark, the United States is approaching its 250th anniversary – an event that is attracting worldwide attention. What does this milestone mean to you in terms of your work? Is there a photo that you think best represents the U.S., whether it's at this moment or at any other time?

A photo I took of a portrait of President Trump. It hung on a building; I photographed it through a fence. An American flag hung over Trump's face. Mark Peterson

How would you describe the current mood in the country?

I have reported extensively on the current Trump administration and also on the people on the streets who are protesting against the Trump administration and ICE in the United States. The current mood in the country is divided: half of the population thinks things are going in the right direction, while the other half believes they are going in the wrong direction.

In view of the flood of AI images, disinformation and fake news on the Internet: How do you currently see the role and importance of photojournalism and the media?

I think photojournalism and citizen journalism have had a big impact – especially in Minneapolis, where photos and cell phone videos have directly contradicted the official statements of Trump administration officials.

 Do you think that photographs can influence public sentiment and opinion, or is that too optimistic a view?

Yes, photos, videos and social media are still very influential and shape public opinion. In Minneapolis, ICE's images have changed the debate, and the government has withdrawn from Minneapolis.

Has your way of photographing changed because photos are now mostly published online and viewed on mobile phones?

No.

What is the biggest challenge photojournalists face in the future, and what would you like to see in your profession?

The biggest challenge is the lack of funding for long-term projects. And that newspapers and media houses close and cut jobs.

Full article here

Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson is a photographer based in New York City. He is the author of two books: »Acts Of Charity« (2004, published by powerHouse Books) and »Acts Of Charity« »Political Theatre« (2016, published by Steidl). In 2018, he was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Award for his work on "White Nationalism".

He is represented by Redux Pictures for editorial assignments and his work appears in magazines and newspapers such as the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, the New York Magazine, French Geo, Fortune and Time Magazine.

His work is in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the International Center of Photography, the George Eastman Museum, and the Fine Art Museum of Houston. Since 2014, Peterson has focused on the decay of U.S. democracy and the rise of nationalism, and will publish a book about this work at Powerhouse in the winter of 2027.

Monroe Gallery will exhibit a selection of Mark Peterson's photographs from Minneapolis at The Photography Show presented by AIPAD, April 22-26 in booth B10.

Fear Is Different Here

 Via The Stranger

March 13, 2026

I photographed the mob at the Capitol on January 6. What I saw in Minneapolis was scarier.

By Nate Gowdy

Observers blow whistles in Minneapolis to signal that feds are present. Nate Gowdy

Seattle-based photographer Nate Gowdy went to Minneapolis to document the Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Metro Surge. From January 17 to January 26, and February 13 to February 18, he photographed the civilian efforts to protect their communities from the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement. This is what he saw.

...When I arrived in Minneapolis, I expected to find overarmed agents, tear gas clouds, traumatized civilians, and I did. I also found people walking their dogs, running errands, meeting for dinner.

Daily life continued, but it was unmistakably altered. Community events were canceled. It came through in every conversation with residents: weekend plans became risk assessments about the federal agents operating in residential neighborhoods without visible name tags or badge numbers. Tension lived in lowered voices and furtive glances toward any vehicle with tinted windows.

For eight days, I worked from a rented Toyota RAV4 with Texas plates with a group of other photojournalists. We taped a PRESS sign inside the windows as a disclaimer to the volunteers standing on almost every street corner in the subzero cold. We tracked federal movements through Signal channels, mixing confirmed sightings with rumors in a steady stream of pings. We stayed in contact with five other cars of photojournalists, all trying to document every abduction—failed or successful—that we could.

As we moved through the city, residents told us about their community-led rapid-response trainings. Volunteers distributed whistles and explained how to document raids safely. From this peaceful resistance, we learned to drive slowly through residential blocks, roll down our windows, and identify ourselves.

“We’re press. We’re watching ICE, too.”

Five years earlier, on January 6, 2021, I photographed the pro-Trump mob as thousands laid siege to the United States Capitol. Claims that “Might Makes Right” exploded into acrid fear. I have an audio recording of that day, when I was deep in the crowd at the Capitol steps, that can still bring back that fear. Wild and chaotic.

In Minnesota, the fear worked differently. It folded itself into school pick-ups, grocery runs, work commutes. People recalculated familiar routes before starting engines. Ordinary traffic drew scrutiny. Conversations sought a lower volume. Or went completely underground. The anxiety was procedural.

Veteran conflict photographers deployed to Minneapolis recognized the pattern: when heavily armed forces operate in civilian space, residents adjust.  Click for full article

Projections: March 11th for a very special evening with photographer Ed Kashi

Via Projections

Hold The Date: Projections March 11th for a very special evening with photographer Ed Kashi.

One of the world’s most celebrated photojournalists and filmmakers Kashi has dedicated the past 45 years to documenting the social and geopolitical issues that define our era.

Ed will be presenting his new book, A Period in Time: Looking Back while Moving Forward: 1977–2022, a stunning and expansive retrospective of photographs spanning the world and his prolific career.

March 11, 2026 7 pm EST 

Ryan Vizzions archives Renee Good memorial site artifacts

 Via The Minnesota Star Tribune

By Alicia Eler

March 3, 2026

Ryan Vizzions:  

January 7th, 2026 - After the murder of Renee Good by a masked federal agent, a vigil was held in her honor. Upward of 10,000 Minnesotans showed up to pay their respects at the location she was killed

What happens next depends on the family’s wishes.

Ryan Vizzions started collecting posters from the spontaneous public memorial that sprung up at the site of Renee Good’s killing. The traveling photographer appointed himself the site’s caretaker.

He also gathered many other items — a cookie jar filled with handwritten letters rolled into scrolls, letters addressed to Good’s family, a canvas covered with names of people killed by federal agents since 2025.

“All these are prayers,” Vizzions said. “These are things that people brought because they cared. We owe it to them to try and preserve them and save them and make it so the future can learn about what happened here.”

When it comes to archiving spontaneous public memorials, there are no clear pathways for what to do. The work is fluid, and caretakers volunteer because they feel called to do so. It’s all open-ended and grassroots; people write the rules as they go along. Even the city of Minneapolis doesn’t have timelines for what happens to memorials, city spokeswoman Jess Olstad said.

At Good’s site, it’s unknown where the gathered items will ultimately go, but community members are in contact with the Good family about next steps.

Vizzions initially rented a storage unit for the posters and other items, but moved them to a more secure undisclosed residential location in south Minneapolis.

“These sites emerge when the future feels uncertain and the past feels unfinished,” said Alex Pretti memorial site caretaker Jadah Green, 43, at a “Caring for Spontaneous Public Memorials After State Violence” panel discussion Feb. 27. “They are not permanent installations. They are not yet historical memory. They are living thresholds.”

Vulnerable memorials

Vizzions has been guarding, cleaning and organizing the site since the week after Good was killed. The site is vulnerable to changing weather and vandalism ― like when someone poured gasoline on it and lit a nearby pile of wood on fire Feb. 17.

The city doesn’t take care of the sites, but might help with cleanup or security. Caretakers do the daily work of talking to visitors, cleaning the site and keeping it beautiful.

Paul Eaves of Minneapolis helps out at George Floyd Square and the Pretti and Good memorial sites.

“It’s not about ego,” said Eaves, 77. “It’s about service.”

Minneapolis City Council Member Jason Chavez said he would like to see a permanent memorial for Good, but stressed that it’s up to the family, and it isn’t a decision that the city will or should make.

“I’ve heard from so many Latino neighbors, immigrant neighbors, about the courage that Renee Good had to look out for our community in a time when many of us feel like we have been sent back into the shadows,” said Chavez, who called the memorial a sacred space. “She brought light into this world.”

He wants caretakers and people affected by ICE to have a place “to mourn and celebrate Renee’s life, and a place where we can never forget what the federal government did and continues to do to our community.”

Vizzions’ favorite piece from the memorial is a painting on cardboard of Good in blue with the American flag.

“When we were doing the watch and we’d sit out there next to the fire, this one was facing us,” he said of painting. “For three weeks I stared at this piece.”

Vizzions raised more than $2,000 to pay for the storage space and equipment, including lights, backdrop, camera stands, tables, storage boxes and more.

In 2017, he published the photo book “No Spiritual Surrender: A Dedication to the Standing Rock Movement.”

He was in northern Minnesota on another project when he heard about Good’s killing. He drove down to Minneapolis and began camping out in front of the memorial in his van.

Through the process, he feels he’s become part of the community, and he’s contributing to the greater good.

The family’s decision

Rise & Remember Executive Director Jeanelle Austin said community members waited nearly two months to reach out to George Floyd’s family after his killing in 2020.

“You have to be able to give the families the time that they need to do all of the other things that take priority, and then when the family is ready, for them to decide what they want to do,” Austin said. “As caretakers, we’re keepers of the stories ― our job is not to make final decisions or final calls of what’s to come next.” --Full article with photographs

Landmark Settlement Announced in Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Questioning of Journalists at the Border, including Gallery Photographer Bing Guan

 Via ACLU

Landmark Settlement Announced in Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Questioning of Journalists at the Border

The settlement comes after five journalists were unlawfully targeted for and questioned about their reporting near the U.S-Mexico border

In a win for freedom of the press, the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of San Diego, and Covington & Burling LLP announced a settlement today in a federal lawsuit challenging the unlawful targeting and questioning of five photojournalists at the U.S.-Mexico border. The lawsuit, filed in November 2019 in federal court in the Eastern District of New York against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), claimed that border officials violated the journalists’ First Amendment rights. The journalists claimed that they were unconstitutionally targeted for secondary inspection, detention, and questioning by U.S. border officials on the basis of their reporting near the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 and 2019. In March 2021, the district court denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case, holding that the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged that border officials violated their First Amendment rights. The case was settled in January 2026.

“The future of our democracy depends on the freedom of the press, now more than ever,” said plaintiff Bing Guan. “It’s clear the government’s actions were meant to instill fear in journalists like me, to cow us into standing down from reporting what is happening on the ground. After being targeted for doing just that, I am grateful for what our lawsuit has achieved in defending the rights of journalists to report free from government officials’ scrutiny.”

Full release here

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ACLU (@aclu_nationwide)

"It’s absolutely imperative that the truth is documented.”

 Via El Pais

February 23, 2026

American photographer Carol Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, asserts that, in light of the brutal anti-immigration crusade being waged by the US government, the work of photojournalists ‘is more important than ever’

It was an unexpected flash of empathy. The woman’s husband had just been detained by immigration agents in a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan, which has become the epicenter of the Donald Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in New York. Photographer Carol Guzy (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 69) saw the agents take the man away as his wife shouted, “Please, help me!” and their two children cried. Guzy decided to accompany the family to the exit. There, the woman realized she didn’t have her keys; with no way to return home, she broke down in tears again. A court security officer approached her to offer help and, faced with the scene, also began to cry. Through her own tears, Guzy captured the moment with her camera.

For the photographer, it is an image that radiates compassion at a time when people desperately need it. In the midst of an unprecedented crusade against immigration, launched by a president obsessed with carrying out the largest deportation in U.S. history, the work of photojournalists like Guzy has become, in her own words, “more important than ever” in her country’s history. With their cameras, they are building a historical record that is at once deeply alive and profoundly human, documenting the consequences of an immigration policy whose effects will be felt for decades to come. --click for full article

“It’s our challenge in the face of the disinformation being disseminated, both for us as photographers and for these brave, brave residents who are standing out there with their cell phones documenting, like Alex Pretti. It’s absolutely imperative that the truth is documented.”

"A Globe Trotting Pioneer"

 Via The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) Exposure Newsletter

February 19, 2026

Margaret Bourke-White/©Life Picture Collection

Courtesy of Monroe Gallery

Louisville Flood Red Cross Relief Station, Kentucky, 1936

Margaret Bourke-White was a pioneer in many ways: a founding member of LIFE magazine, she was also the publication’s first female photographer, and she photographed the magazine’s first cover in 1936 (of the massive Fort Peck Dam in Fort Peck, Montana). A globe-trotting photojournalist (who was played in films by both Candace Bergen and Farrah Fawcett), she became a successful photographer in many male-dominated areas of the field, including industrial photography. When she was all of 23 years old, she photographed the Otis Steel Mill in Cleveland, where she also photographed the city’s famous Terminal Tower. Her 1937 landmark book, You Have Seen Their Faces, with text by her then-husband Erskine Caldwell, documented the lives of shareholders and tenant farmers in the deep south with empathy and grace. After embedding with the Air Force during World War II, she was one of the first people to photograph the devastation of the concentration camps, and her photographs of Gandhi following the partition of India were some of the last photographs ever taken of him before he was assassinated in 1948. A selection of this remarkable body of work is on view through April 26 at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography.
-Jean Dykstra

Margaret Bourke-White/©Life Picture Collection

Courtesy of Monroe Gallery

Gandhi walking with close advisors and family members, India, 1946

Ryan Vizzions Photographed Renee Good Memorial Site Arson

 Via Minnesota Star Tribune

February 18, 2026

Someone doused Renee Good’s south Minneapolis memorial and a nearby pile of wood with gasoline and started a fire at about 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17.

A fence was charred, and several items in the memorial were damaged, but the memorial site at 34th Street and Portland Avenue wasn’t burned down. No one was injured, Minneapolis police said.

Photojournalist Ryan Vizzions, 43, smelled gasoline from inside his van, which was parked near the memorial site.

“I looked out my windshield and I see orange,” he said. “My eyes lit up.”

Vizzions jumped out of the van after seeing the flames. Neighbors who live in the apartment building in front of Good’s memorial used two fire extinguishers to put out the blaze, he said.

Community members had covered the memorial site with a tarp earlier to protect it from the rain.

“We’ve been hypervigilant in our neighborhood and obviously everyone’s keeping an eye out all of the time,” said Wren Clinefelter, 23, who lives near the memorial. “So it’s definitely very disheartening to hear that someone would try and burn down a memorial for a woman who was killed in our neighborhood.”

Vizzions posted a video of the scene to his Instagram account.

More with video reporting via WCCO on Facebook

Photojournalists documenting Trump’s deportation forces play critical role, but face increasing state violence

Via Prism

February 18, 2026

"Masked federal agents have abducted anyone they suspect of being a migrant—from workplaces, houses, courthouses, schools, and streets. ICE has forced its way into people’s homes with battering rams, dragged a pregnant woman through the snow, taken children as young as five into custody, and killed American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

And at every step, journalists have documented the rapidly escalating state violence—often at great risk to themselves. While covering ICE’s enforcement surge in Los Angeles, TV reporter Lauren Tomasi was live on air when a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer aimed his weapon directly at Tomasi at close range, hitting her with “nonlethal ammunition.” Photographer Nick Stern required emergency surgery after LAPD shot his thigh with a plastic bullet. In Chicago, an ICE agent shot a pepper ball into the parked car of reporter Asal Rezaei, and in New York, ICE agents shoved visual journalist L. Vural Elibol, causing a head injury that required emergency services.

Ryanne Mena, who covered the ICE raids for the Southern California News Group, was shot on June 6 in the left thigh with a pepper ball bullet. The following day, she was struck in the head with a rubber bullet and the reporter next to her was hit in the head with a tear gas canister. Mena, who has asthma, had difficulty breathing and bystanders helped the reporters flush their eyes with water.

“I spent the rest of that day with a grueling headache. I threw up later that night, and two days later I was diagnosed with a concussion,” said Mena, who noted that a half year later, her brain fog is just now starting to dissipate and that she continues to experience heightened anxiety.

In Minneapolis, freelance photographer John Abernathy was surrounded and tackled by immigration agents on Jan. 15. “They set off a flash bang and then tear gas,” he explained. “I was shot twice with pepper bullets in my leg. I was then surrounded by border police and taken to the ground where they sprayed me in the face with pepper spray. My face was on fire. My eyes were on fire. I was gasping and gagging. I ended up having multiple injuries from the pepper bullets, chemical burns in my eye, and abrasions from being taken down.”' --click for full article

"I asked journalists who have been covering the ICE raids in LA, Oakland, Chicago, and Minneapolis to share their advice on staying safe. Here’s what they said"

Inside the U.S. Immigration System with Nicolò Filippo Rosso - February 12, 2026

Via Seven Foundation

Since 2018, visual journalist Nicolo Filippo Rosso has been documenting migration across the Americas, photographing families across South and Central America as they make the difficult journey north to the United States in search of safety. By 2024, Nicolo reconnected with some in the United States. What they had imagined as the end of a dangerous journey had become a new cycle of fear and instability.

 

In the summer of 2025, Nicolo spent nearly every day inside the immigration courts of downtown Manhattan, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have detained numerous non-U.S. citizens attending court hearings. Many arrived under Temporary Protected Status or requested asylum at the border. They complied with the system, yet were still taken from the hallways, arrested, sent to distant detention centres, and placed on the path to deportation, either to their home countries or to third nations.

 

Hosted by Ron Haviv, the conversation will explore the deep divide in U.S. immigration policy, where demands for border control collide with calls for humanity, and discuss what effect these issues have on the democratic fabric of the country.

Register here

I Was Arrested for Doing My Job as a Reporter. Who’s Next?

 Via The New York Times

by Georgia Fort

Ms. Fort is an independent journalist based in Minnesota.

February 5, 2026

"Journalism is a public service, and I am proud to be a public servant. Professional reporting, observing and documenting is not a crime. But the freedom to do so is at risk. In November alone, three journalists were hit with pepper balls or other less lethal munitions and subjected to chemical agents while covering an ICE arrest in St. Paul. One, a Minnesota Public Radio reporter, was taken away by ambulance. Cameras were rolling. Press credentials were visible but offered no protection. I interviewed the St. Paul chief of police about these attacks in December. He refused to acknowledge that the incidents had occurred, even though several journalists had filmed and photographed them, including me. I filed a Freedom of Information Act request a few days after the interview to obtain body-camera footage of the attack on these journalists. It was denied.

These incidents are not isolated. After the fatal shooting of Renee Good, the independent photographer KingDemetrius Pendleton was tear-gassed by federal agents and was apparently shot with a chemical munitions canister. The Star Tribune video journalist Mark Vancleave was pushed back into his car by federal agents after trying to report on an ICE arrest, which he was covering for The Associated Press. The KARE 11 anchor Jana Shortal was hit with a chemical irritant while reporting after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti.

Having the right to film and document matters. Footage can disprove false accusations or confirm hard truths. It can exonerate or incriminate. Days after the church protest, Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse, was fatally shot by ICE agents. In the minutes that followed, videos from multiple angles of the shooting were published online, and this allowed the public, the press and the authorities to review the evidence." --full article here.

Related: Free Speech in Deep Freeze