Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Tracy Barbutes Photographs Yosemite Protest Rally For The SF Standard
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Tracy Barbutes' Transgender Pride Flag Photograph Leads NY Times Article
August 18, 2025
Yosemite Biologist Who Hung Trans Pride Flag From El Capitan Is Fired
The National Park Service terminated Shannon Joslin over the May 20 demonstration, which it said took place in a prohibited area and lacked the required permits. -Click for full article
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Independent photojournalist Nate Gowdy was assaulted and detained by police while documenting a protest against immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles, California, on August 8, 2025.
August 13, 2025
Independent photojournalist Nate Gowdy was assaulted and detained by police while documenting a protest against immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles, California, on August 8, 2025.
Protests in LA began in early June in response to federal raids of workplaces and areas in and around the city where immigrant day laborers gather, amid the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown. Raids at Home Depots in early August took place seemingly in defiance of a July 11 court order temporarily prohibiting federal agents from using discriminatory profiling.
On Aug. 8, two days after an immigration raid in the parking lot of a Home Depot in LA’s Westlake neighborhood, protesters gathered at the store and marched to the Metropolitan Detention Center downtown. The demonstrators and the journalists covering them encountered a violent response from Los Angeles Police Department officers, violating a court order protecting the press from arrest, assault or other interference.
Gowdy, who was visiting from Seattle, Washington, said he had been photographing the Aug. 8 protest with his partner, fellow journalist Carrie Schreck. The two began documenting the demonstration as protesters started to march. The protest remained peaceful, Gowdy said, until the LAPD arrived.
“They basically lined up and without any provocation, in order to move people, started just swinging their batons indiscriminately,” he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.
Gowdy watched as one journalist, Nick Stern, waving his press badge to officers, was struck in the face with a police baton. Gowdy himself was thrown to the ground by several officers, scraping his elbow and damaging the metal connectors on the strap holding his spare camera lenses.
“They were so aggressive and wild-eyed and violent,” he said of the LAPD.
After police declared the protest an unlawful assembly, officers pushed demonstrators farther from the detention center. Gowdy and Schreck had stopped photographing and were leaving the area when they were suddenly kettled, or herded by police, along with a handful of journalists and demonstrators, just three blocks from Schreck’s apartment.
Some had press credentials, but Gowdy said officers ignored them.
“They said they didn’t care, and that everyone should have to line up against the wall,” Gowdy recalled.
The journalists’ hands were placed in zip-tie restraints. While some were released, Gowdy and Schreck remained detained for not having physical press badges. Despite carrying camera gear and being vouched for by their colleagues, the officers questioned their legitimacy and denied their requests to speak with a public information officer.
Gowdy offered to show digital credentials and suggested a quick online search to verify his work with major news outlets, but was told he’d be cited for failure to disperse. He and Schreck were taken to a nearby police station and eventually released after more than two hours in custody.
Gowdy said such traumatic encounters can discourage journalists from covering protests.
“In this case, the law was on our side,” he said. “But they didn’t seem to know the law, or they willfully disregarded it in order to intimidate and harass us.”
Gowdy said he doesn’t wear a press badge when he covers protests in Seattle, after it made him a police target. Covering the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, he saw how press credentials can also attract threats from demonstrators. Still, he said this incident convinced him to carry one just in case.
The LAPD did not respond to a Tracker request for comment about the detained journalists. In a statement posted to the social platform X, the department’s Central Division wrote that an unlawful assembly was declared “due to the aggressive nature of a few demonstrators.”
“The protest went into the late night hours with people refusing to disperse,” it continued. “Central Division will continue to support 1st Amendment rights of all people. However, if violence or criminal activity occurs, laws will be enforced.”
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker catalogues press freedom violations in the United States. Email tips to tips@pressfreedomtracker.us.
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Federal Judge Tells LAPD to Stop Shooting at Journalists
July 11, 2025
A federal judge just had to remind police that they shouldn’t shoot at journalists after several violent encounters during the protests opposing the Trump administration’s disastrous ICE raids in Los Angeles.
U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera blocked the Los Angeles Police Department from wrongfully preventing journalists from accessing closed off areas, detaining or arresting journalists while they’re reporting, and using less lethal munitions (LLMs) and other crowd control weapons against them.In a 14 page-filing, Vera said that the First Amendment claims made by the Los Angeles Press Club were likely to succeed, and granted them a temporary restraining order. “Indeed, given the fundamental nature of the speech interests involved and the almost daily protests throughout Southern California drawing media coverage, the identified harm is undoubtedly imminent and concrete,” he wrote in a filing.
Vera recounted multiple instances of journalists being cordoned away from the protests or detained and arrested by officers. Documentarian and activist Anthony Orendoff was detained for four days despite telling officers he was a member of the press.
Vera also recounted many instances of violence against members of the press. In one instance, an officer appeared to aim his gun at 9News Australia’s Lauren Tomasi while she was reporting live, and fired a rubber bullet which hit her in the leg on air. Photojournalist Michael Nigro, who stood high above the protests in a press vest and helmet, heard the sound of LLMs hitting a pole by his head, and later that day was struck in the helmet by a rubber bullet. Another unidentified photojournalist with a press pass was pushed over by a police officer, and trampled by a police horse.
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Reporting under fire: Protests and press freedom in Los Angeles, a virtual webinar event with Freedom of the Press Foundation
Via Freedom Of The Press Foundation
Wednesday, July 9, 3 p.m. EDT/12 p.m. PDT
Journalists covering recent demonstrations in California have been assaulted, detained, shot with crowd-control munitions, and had their equipment searched — simply for doing their jobs.
Freelance and independent reporters are especially vulnerable, yet they continue to document how immigration raids impact communities and how law enforcement responds to civil unrest. Some of the journalists joining us are also plaintiffs in lawsuits pushing back against police actions that threaten press freedom and violate the First Amendment.
Join us to hear their firsthand accounts and learn what it means to uphold the public’s right to know in the streets and on the front lines.
If you cannot attend, help protect the rights of these journalists and defend press freedom everywhere by making a donation to support our work at this link.
On July 9th, we’ll be joined by:
- Adam Rose, Press rights chair and secretary at LA Press Club
- Ben Camacho, Journalist and co-founder of The Southlander
- Sean Beckner-Carmitchel, Independent videographer
- Tina-Desiree Berg, Journalist for Status Coup and other outlets
- Caitlin Vogus, Freedom of the Press Foundation senior adviser
Friday, June 13, 2025
Flag Day, 2025
Flag Day is a holiday celebrated on June 14 in the United States. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777 by resolution of the Second Continental Congress.
Throughout history, flags have elevated the emotional impact of images.
Perhaps the most iconic of all flag photos is Joe Rosenthal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of six U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. It was taken on Friday, February 23, 1945, five days after the Marines landed on the island. Almost instantly, the image came to symbolize American courage, resilience, and unity in the face of adversity, becoming a powerful emblem of the nation's resolve during World War II.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Thomas E. Franklin documented three New York firefighters raising the American flag amid the wreckage of the fallen World Trade Center towers. Like Rosenthal’s photo, it was universally embraced, an uplifting photo that defined resilience and unity.
The weaponization of the flag has similarly produced iconic photographs. In 1976, Stanley Forman photographed a white protester outside City Hall assaulting an African American attorney with the American flag. “The photo shocked Boston” made front pages across the U.S. and also won a Pulitzer Prize. Captioned “The Soiling of Old Glory”, to this day it offers a dramatic window onto the turbulence of the 1970s and race relations in America.
Nearly fifty years later, on January 6, 2021, a weaponized American flag was documented once again. David Butow’s unsettling photo of Trump supporters attacking police from the steps of the Capitol is a modern echo of Forman’s Soiling of Old Glory.
And most recently, on February 22, 2025 – almost exactly 80 years to the day after Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photograph - Tracy Barbutes photographed an inverted American flag — historically used as a sign of distress — off the side of El Capitan, a towering rock formation in Yosemite National Park, hung to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service. Hundreds of visitors had gathered to photograph an annual phenomenon in the park known as firefall, when the setting sun causes a seasonal waterfall on El Capitan to glow orange. One spectator commented: “I feel like our national parks are national treasures, and they need to be protected, as does our democracy. It was a call to action and a call for hope.”
Monday, June 9, 2025
Journalists are injured while covering the LA protests
June 9, 2025
Law enforcement injure at least 4 journalists covering protests in California amid federal crackdown
British photographer injured by 'plastic bullet' in LA protests
Australian journalist hit by 'rubber bullet' while reporting from LA
Chinese journalist hit by rubber bullet amid the Los Angeles conflict: report
Thursday, April 10, 2025
Monroe Gallery Announces Representation of Tracy Barbutes Instantly Iconic Photograph of Upside Down Flag Protest At Yosemite National Park
April 10, 2025
Monroe Gallery Announces Representation of Tracy Barbutes Instantly Iconic Photograph of Upside Down Flag Protest At Yosemite National Park
On February 22, 2025 – almost exactly 80 years to the day after Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photograph - Tracy Barbutes photographed an inverted American flag — historically used as a sign of distress — off the side of El Capitan, a towering rock formation in Yosemite National Park, hung to protest the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Park Service. Hundreds of visitors had gathered to photograph an annual phenomenon in the park known as firefall, when the setting sun causes a seasonal waterfall on El Capitan to glow orange. One spectator commented: “I feel like our national parks are national treasures, and they need to be protected, as does our democracy. It was a call to action and a call for hope.”
"Heading to Yosemite that Saturday, I had been told there might be some form of protest at El Capitan (Tu-tok-ah-nu-lah), the park’s iconic 3,000-foot granite monolith.
There were unconfirmed reports that at least one recently-fired park employee would rappel with an American flag to protest his firing, as well as to protest the thousands of federal jobs lost due to the Trump administration/Elon Musk DOGE cuts.
The event would likely happen near Horsetail Fall, during “firefall” – a natural phenomenon that draws thousands of spectators each February.
I stood under El Cap, something I’ve done hundreds of times, and as I documented the unfurling of that upside down American flag, an act signaling distress, I couldn’t help but think of the paradox of the overall situation as we were gathered on colonized Indigenous land.
There wasn’t an immediate or overwhelming reaction from the crowd, though there was no missing the event. While intent on capturing a series of images, I was mindful that I was documenting a bold, courageous, historic act.
It wasn’t until later that night and the next morning as the image went viral that I began to understand what those actions, and the image, meant. Did Nate Vance, the fired park employee behind the flag protest, and his cohorts, shake people out of a collective stupor and spark a movement of resistance." -- Tracy Barbutes
Barbutes is a photojournalist, writer, and wildfire photographer based near Yosemite.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Bing Guan Photograph Headlines NY Times Article "Columbia Campus Occupation Could Have Ended Without Police, Report Says"
April 2, 2025
Guan's photograph was originally published in the NY Times May 1, 2024 edition.
Monroe Gallery will exhibit this photograph and other examples of Guan’s work at the 2025 Photography Show presented by AIPAD in booth #C8, April 23 – 27 at The Park Avenue Armory in New York City.
Friday, March 21, 2025
Ryan Vizzions' Iconic Standing Rock Photograph Featured in The Daly Climate Article on Greenpeace Verdict
March 20, 2025
Greenpeace faces massive financial blow in pipeline lawsuit
EHN CuratorsGreenpeace has been ordered to pay $667 million to the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline after a North Dakota jury found the environmental group defamed the company, a verdict that could have sweeping consequences for advocacy and free speech.
Anna Phillips reports for The Washington Post.
In short:The lawsuit stemmed from Greenpeace’s involvement in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, where Energy Transfer accused the group of inciting violence and damaging its reputation. Greenpeace denies these claims and plans to appeal.
Environmentalists warn the ruling could stifle activism, making groups wary of challenging fossil fuel projects. Experts say it sends a chilling message to climate protests that disrupt infrastructure.
The case is seen as part of a broader trend of corporations using strategic lawsuits (SLAPPs) to silence critics. Unlike more than 30 other states, North Dakota lacks laws discouraging such lawsuits.
Key quote:
“We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech.”
— Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal counsel for Greenpeace USA
Why this matters:
Beyond the courtroom, the stakes are high. This case isn’t just about Greenpeace — it’s about the future of environmental protest in an era of escalating climate crisis. If the ruling stands, the next time a pipeline spills or a fossil fuel project threatens communities, who will dare to sound the alarm?
Read more:Fossil fuel companies ramp up lawsuits to silence climate activists in Europe
Governments and corporations are intensifying pressure on environmental defenders
Sacred Water: Environmental justice in Indian Country
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Winona LaDuke: DAPL Pipeline Lawsuit Against Greenpeace Aims to Silence Indigenous Protests, Too
As the oil company Energy Transfer sues Greenpeace over the 2016 Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, we speak with Indigenous activist Winona LaDuke, who took part in that historic uprising. LaDuke is an enrolled member of the Mississippi Band of Anishinaabe who lives and works on the White Earth Nation Reservation and was among the thousands of people who joined the protests in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to protect water and Indigenous lands in North Dakota. She highlights the close links between North Dakota’s government and Energy Transfer and says that while the lawsuit targets Greenpeace, Indigenous water and land defenders are also on trial. “North Dakota has really been trying to squash any kind of resistance,” says LaDuke. “If they can try to shut down Greenpeace, they’re going to shut down everybody.”
Saturday, November 2, 2024
John Olsen's "Women's March" Photo Featured In NY Times Magazine Essay
November 2, 2024
How Will White Women Vote? It’s a Question With a Fraught History.
White and Black women have joined together to power progressive causes — from abolition to civil rights — but it’s a tenuous alliance. --Click for full article
This photograph is featured in the current Monroe Gallery exhibition "The Best of Us".
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Nina Berman Guided Tour Through Her Exhibition "We The People" At The Capa Space
October 10, 2024
ARTIST TALK - Photographer Nina Berman will do a guided tour through her We The People exhibition for an inside look at the protest photographs she has been taking for over thirty years. She will talk about what inspired her to turn her lens on protest in America and what she has learned about the people who organize and assert their right to protest. Sunday, October 20th 2024 @ 4pm. Suggested donation $10.
Click here to RSVP
WE THE PEOPLE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY NINA BERMAN
We the People brings together more than three decades of work by photographer Nina Berman who has tenaciously documented the public outrages, injustices, protestations and longings of a deeply dissatisfied and increasingly polarized society. What the United States should be, and for whom, are questions at the heart of Nina’s work and the 2024 election. September 8th - November 24th, 2024
Monday, October 7, 2024
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.”
Monday, September 2, 2024
WE THE PEOPLE, Photographs by Nina Berman
September 2, 2024
The Fight for 15 protest in Long Island, NY 2016.
We the People brings together more than three decades of work by photographer Nina Berman who has tenaciously documented the public outrages, injustices, protestations and longings of a deeply dissatisfied and increasingly polarized society. What the United States should be, and for whom, are questions at the heart of Nina’s work and the 2024 election.
September 8th - November 24th, 2024
Opening Reception, Sunday September 8th, 4-6pm
THE CAPA SPACE
2467 Quaker Church Road
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
Des Moines city manager says free press is important as part of protest lawsuit settlement
August 27, 2024
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.
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."
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
The man in front of the tank: How journalists smuggled out the iconic Tiananmen Square photo
Tiananmen Square: How journalists smuggled out the iconic ‘Tank Man’ photo | CNN
June 4, 2024
"The journey of the photograph, too, captured the tension and fear of the time – involving smuggling equipment and film past authorities and across borders. By that point, the Chinese government was trying desperately to control the message going out to the world – and was trying to stop all American news outlets, including CNN, from broadcasting live from Beijing.
It was Monday, June 5, 1989, and Beijing was reeling from the crackdown the day before. Liu Heung-shing, the photo editor for the AP in Beijing, asked Jeff Widener to help get photos of Chinese troops from the Beijing Hotel – which had the best vantage point of the square, now under military control.Widener had flown in from the news agency’s Bangkok office a week before to help with coverage, and was hurt when the crackdown began, he told CNN previously – after having been hit in the head by a rock, and laid low with the flu.
He set off, with his camera equipment hidden in his jacket – a long 400-millimeter lens in one pocket, a doubler in another, film in his underwear and the camera body in his back pocket.
Saturday, June 1, 2024
Arrests of journalists already doubled over last year
Via US Press Freedom Tracker Via US Press Freedom Tracker
May 31, 2024
"Friends of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker:
Welcome back to your newsletter around press freedom violations in the United States. Find archived editions here, and get this newsletter directly in your inbox by signing up here.One month later — arrests have doubled
In my last newsletter, I wrote about journalists covering local reaction to the Israel-Gaza war, noting that as April came to an end, we had documented 13 arrests or detainments of members of the press, and were actively reporting on more. Active, indeed: As of today, we’ve documented 36.
Importantly, the number of journalists arrested or detained so far this year — which is not even half over — is more than the last two years combined.
In addition to arrests, we’ve captured more than 30 assaults of journalists under our “Israel-Gaza war” tag since Oct. 7, 2023 — seven of those on student journalists — and nine reports of damaged equipment."
Friday, May 31, 2024
Jeff Widener's photo of a man standing in front of tanks in Beijing's Tiananmen Square has come to symbolize ordinary people standing up to power
Via NPR Throughline: Dare to Dissent
Originally aired December 14, 2023
This photo of a man standing in front of tanks in Beijing's Tiananmen Square has come to symbolize ordinary people standing up to power.
Want more? NPR's Throughline podcast has an entire episode on this topic. The link is here.