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More Protests and More Arrests

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More Protests and More Arrests

In Minneapolis, it's more of the same

Scott Nover
Apr 20, 2021
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More Protests and More Arrests

pressing.substack.com

I’m Scott Nover. Welcome back to Pressing, a newsletter about press freedom. If you haven’t yet subscribed, you can do so here and receive this letter in your inbox every Tuesday morning.

This is the 70th issue of Pressing and it’s great to have you with me. Please send me feedback, thoughts, suggestions, and tips at sgnover@gmail.com.


More Protests and More Arrests

Chad Davis from Minneapolis, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The last couple of weeks have felt eerily familiar. As the Derek Chauvin trial has been underway, new protests have sprung up after new police murders of Black Americans. New protests means new arrests for peaceful protesters and journalists covering them.

First, let’s take a look at the Chauvin trial. David Bauder at the Associated Press wrote a lovely piece about the emotional toll the trial has taken on Black journalists. “I guess I have sort of compartmentalized what is happening,” Minneapolis Public Radio reporter Brandt Williams told him. “It’s like when a first responder comes across a scene that is bloody. You can set aside your feelings and do your job.”

Another reporter quoted in that story is CNN’s Sara Sidner.

Sidner, who is doing yeoman’s work covering the Chauvin trial, has also reported live on air from the protests that sprung up in Brooklyn Center, Minn., right outside of Minneapolis, after police killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright. But Sidner had a tense, on-camera moment with a protester who felt frustrated with the media narratives around the protests.

“What I think about this? All the press and all the shit y’all do makes this worse,” the unnamed man said to Sidner, later accusing the media of “twisting up the story,” though he didn’t specify how.

Twitter avatar for @Phil_Lewis_
philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_
Whoa: A protester just confronted @sarasidnerCNN on live TV
Image
2:12 AM ∙ Apr 13, 2021
1,861Likes410Retweets

On CNN’s Reliable Sources this Sunday, Sidner explained the role of journalists covering protests. “We're out here to tell the story... we're just reflecting what is happening in society,” she said.

Sidner continued: “The media, whether you call it mainstream media or not—everyone has their own little TV station and they’re all broadcasting all the time,” she said, holding up her iPhone. “So, attacking us isn’t doing a whole lot of good.” She conceded that television cameras can have some negative externalities in protest zones, but said it’s her job to tell the story of what’s happening on the ground.

Twitter avatar for @ScottNover
Scott Nover @ScottNover
I compiled a list of 160 incidents where journalists were hurt, arrested, wrongly restricted or targeted by police while covering protests across the U.S. this week. There are some instances of attacks by civilians, but the majority are by police.
pressing.substack.com160 Threats to Press Freedom in the United States—This WeekA comprehensive list of violence, police abuse and restrictions on journalists covering protests this week
12:54 PM ∙ Jun 2, 2020
2,823Likes1,867Retweets

Last year, after George Floyd’s murder, I reported on the mass arrests of journalists covering the nationwide protests. In the wake of Wright’s killing, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has recoded at least nine assaults of journalists, six arrests and multiple seizures of equipment from those covering the recent protests.

Twitter avatar for @uspresstracker
U.S. Press Freedom Tracker @uspresstracker
UPDATE: We’re working to document at least 9 assaults, 6 arrests/detainments, multiple reports of equipment damage and media checkpoints from journalists covering Daunte Wright protests across the U.S.
Twitter avatar for @uspresstracker
U.S. Press Freedom Tracker @uspresstracker
At least 7 assaults and 3 arrests/detainments of journalists covering protests in Brooklyn Center, MN, following the killing of Daunte Wright have been reported to us, plus multiple accounts of equipment damage. As we confirm the press freedom violations, find them here:
3:06 PM ∙ Apr 18, 2021
69Likes50Retweets

Adam Gray, a British photojournalist, was “pushed to the ground, handcuffed, and cited with failure to follow a lawful order” on Apr. 13. Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Andy Mannix was hit in the foot with a less-lethal round. And a three-person Fox News team was detained the next day.

One of the most disturbing charges comes from CNN producer Carolyn Sung, who said state troopers grabbed her by her backpack, “threw her to the ground, zip-tying her hands behind her back” as she attempted to leave the scene. One trooper yelled “Do you speak English?” at Sung, who is Asian American and she was taken into custody. At the nearby jail, she was “patted down and searched by a female officer who put her hands down Sung’s pants and in her bra.” The allegations by Sung are one of many cited in a letter sent by attorney Leita Walker of the firm Ballard Spahr on behalf of more than 25 news organizations including the AP, The New York Times, and BuzzFeed News.

  • You can read a copy of the letter here.

Additionally, a number of journalists were forced onto the ground Friday night while covering the protests and were not released until police photographed their faces and press credentials.

This happened just hours after a federal judge in Minnesota issued a temporary order forbidding the state patrol from using force against journalists.

By Sunday, Governor Tim Walz said he was embarrassed about how police treated journalists covering the protests.

Twitter avatar for @GovTimWalz
Governor Tim Walz @GovTimWalz
A free press is foundational to our democracy. Reporters worked tirelessly during this tumultuous year to keep Minnesotans informed. I convened a meeting today with media and law enforcement to determine a better path forward to protect the journalists covering civil unrest.
9:55 PM ∙ Apr 17, 2021
1,596Likes196Retweets

Often people—even fellow journalists—belittle the outcry about injustices toward press, remarking that journalists are no more important than peaceful protesters. In a way, I agree. With the exception of administrative carveouts for journalists that allow us to bypass curfews and other restrictions, journalists and protesters alike enjoy First Amendment protections. And, as Sidner remarked, it feels like little separates journalists from everyday citizens.

I’ll conclude with two thoughts on this matter. First, professional journalists are just doing their jobs. They may or may not feel impassioned one way or another about the protests they are covering, but they need to be free to move about and cover the events as they unfold. Second, I see abuses toward journalists as a tip-of-the-iceberg issue.

If credentialed journalists are treated this poorly, you can easily imagine how police treat everyone else.


If you would like to donate to keep Pressing going, you may do so through a “paid subscription” below. Or you can “buy me a coffee” through this link. Pressing is a free newsletter, but any contributions allow me to keep producing this newsletter for everyone each week.


Bainum Loses Key Partner in Tribune Bid

A much-praised deal to rescue Tribune newspapers from the clutches of Alden Global Capital—a firm notorious for cutting resources for journalists to boost profit margins—appears to have fallen through on Monday.

The rival bidder, billionaire hotel magnate Stewart Bainum, was mounting a serious bid to buy all of the Tribune papers and sell most to local investors while retaining ownership of his hometown newspaper The Baltimore Sun, Bainum lost a key investment partner in the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. With Wyss out of the picture, The Chicago Tribune and Poynter reported that the deal is currently unlikely to happen.


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Below, you’ll find A LOT OF LINKS! These are the biggest stories in global press freedom, media law, the news industry, tech and society. Have something that you think should go in next week’s issue? Email me at sgnover@gmail.com.

Global Press Freedom

  • Associated Press: Inside secret Syria talks aimed at freeing American hostages (Ben Fox, Eric Tucker, and Matthew Lee)

  • The Atlantic: The Awful Wisdom of the Hostage (Graeme Wood)

  • CNN: Hong Kong court jails Jimmy Lai and other prominent activists for 8 to 18 months over 2019 protest (Eric Cheung)

  • Committee to Protect Journalists: Russian law enforcement raid apartment, interrogate journalist Roman Anin

  • The Daily Beast: Israeli Snoop-for-Hire Posed as a Fox News Journalist for a Spy Operation (Adam Rawnsley)

  • Glenn Greenwald: My New Book on Journalism, Exposing Corruption, and the Resulting Risks, Dangers and Societal Changes

  • The Hill: CNN's Chance among journalists detained while covering Navalny imprisonment (Thomas Moore)

  • NBC News: He was praised after the movie 'Hotel Rwanda,' now Paul Rusesabagina faces terrorism charges (Michael Fiorentino)

  • The New York Times: BBC Correspondent Leaves China, Citing Growing Risks (Amy Qin)

  • The New York Times: Cambodians Demand Apology for Khmer Rouge Images With Smiling Faces (Seth Mydans)

  • The New York Times: Myanmar Soldiers, Aiming to Silence Protests, Target Journalists (Richard C. Paddock)

  • The New York Times: India’s News Upstarts Challenged Modi. New Rules Could Tame Them. (Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar)

  • BuzzFeed News: I Thought My Job Was To Report On Technology In India. Instead, I Got A Front-Row Seat To The Decline Of My Democracy. (Pranav Dixit)

  • Reuters: Press freedom in Macau’s gambling hub under spotlight as China ramps up scrutiny (Clare Jim and Farah Master)

  • Vice World News: How CNN’s Myanmar Trip Started a Debate Over Parachute Journalism (Heather Chen and Joe Freeman)

  • The Washington Post: Justice may finally arrive for photojournalist slain in Libya (Jason Rezaian)


Media Law Matters

  • Axios: Former Rep. Katie Hill loses lawsuit against Daily Mail over nude photos (Orion Rummler)

  • Columbia Journalism Review: What a costly lawsuit against investigative reporting looks like (D. Victoria Baranetsky and Alexandra Gutierrez)

  • The New York Times: One America News Network Stays True to Trump (Rachel Abrams)

  • Politico: Appeals court rejects academic’s libel suit over claims of affair with Flynn (Josh Gerstein)

  • Slate: Clarence Thomas’ Attack on Social Media Companies Is a Paranoid Marxist Delusion (Mark Joseph Stern)

  • The Washington Post: The problem with cheering for the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News (Margaret Sullivan)

  • The Washington Post: Former intelligence analyst Daniel Hale pleads guilty to leaking classified information (Rachel Weiner)

Around the Newsroom

  • CNN: America's newsrooms are reckoning with their mass shooting coverage (Alexis Benveniste)

  • The Daily Princetonian: Eight papers, eight women: Ivy League journalists reflect on leadership, priorities (Nhuquynh Nguyen and Liana Slomka)

  • The New Yorker: The Deceit and Conflict Behind the Leak of the Pentagon Papers (Ben Bradlee, Jr.)

  • The Washington Post: The Trump White House provided reporters with a gusher of leaks. With Biden, everything’s changed. (Paul Farhi)

  • The Washington Post: Tucker Carlson villainizes journalists on his top-rated show. Then the threats pour in. (Jeremy Barr)


Tech and Society

  • Decrypt: Edward Snowden NFT Sells for $5.4 Million in Ethereum (Jeff Benson)

  • Gizmodo: We're Archiving Yahoo Answers So You'll Always Know How Babby Is Formed (Dhruv Mehrotra and Shoshana Wodinsky)

  • The New Republic: Twitter Is Enabling Saudi Arabia’s Brutal Crackdown on Dissent (Jacob Silverman)

  • NPR: This News Publisher Quit Facebook. Readership Went Up (Shannon Bond)

  • NPR: 'Stop Lying': Muslim Rights Group Sues Facebook Over Claims It Removes Hate Groups (Bobby Allyn)

  • NPR: Falun Gong, Steve Bannon And The Trump-Era Battle Over Internet Freedom (David Folkenflik)

  • Politico: National Archives can’t resurrect Trump’s tweets, Twitter says (Quint Forgey)

  • Politico: Trump faces a narrow path to victory against Facebook suspension (Cristiano Lima)

  • Protocol: For Big Tech whistleblowers, there’s no such thing as 'moving on' (Issie Lapowsky)

  • Thomsen Reuters Foundation: China found using surveillance firms to help write ethnic-tracking specs (Avi Asher-Shapiro)

  • The Wall Street Journal: Google’s Secret ‘Project Bernanke’ Revealed in Texas Antitrust Case (Jeff Horwitz and Keach Hagey)

  • Wired: Polarization Isn't America's Biggest Problem—or Facebook's (Shannon McGregor and Daniel Kreiss)


Thanks for reading Pressing today and always. Like what you read and want to support me? Consider donating via a paid subscription here. I’ll see you next Tuesday! Send tips and feedback to sgnover@gmail.com.

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