Tag: Katherine Jacobsen

Journalists covering the unrest in LA are being obstructed, assaulted and injured

You may have seen the video. Lauren Tomasi of 9News in Australia is doing a standup in the middle of a Los Angeles street. Behind her, some distance away, are uniformed police officers. She tells viewers that “the situation has now rapidly deteriorated. The LAPD moving in on horseback, firing rubber bullets at protesters, moving them on through the heart of LA.”

She flinches briefly as another rubber bullet is fired. Then another — and she’s hit in the leg, crying out in pain and bending over. The camera moves away from her and we hear a male voice asking, “You OK?”

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Tomasi went live after the incident and doesn’t appear to be much worse for the wear. She was lucky. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, law enforcment officers have assaulted, obstructed and injured a number of reporters who are covering the unrest in Los Angeles touched off by an ICE raid at a Home Depot on Friday. The CPJ writes:

Law enforcement in Los Angeles, California, shot non-lethal rounds that struck multiple reporters while they covered protests that began on Friday, June 6, and escalated over the weekend following immigration raids. More than 20 others were reported to have been assaulted or obstructed.

And though Tomasi didn’t appear to be seriously hurt, rubber bullets can cause severe injuries. CPJ reports that Nick Stern, a British freelance photojournalist, underwent emergency surgery for injuries caused by a plastic bullet that struck him in the leg. The CPJ notes: “Stern told the BBC that he was wearing a press card around his neck and carrying his camera when he was shot.”

Is law enforcement targeting journalists? “Tomasi, holding a microphone and talking into a camera, was clearly a journalist,” writes Poynter media columnist Tom Jones. But as you can see from the video of Tomasi, she had embedded herself with a large swath of protesters. It’s possible that the police were firing at the protesters and she just happened to be in harm’s way.

The more important question is this: Why were officers firing at a crowd of what appeared to be peaceful demonstrators?

By the way, the “more than 20” number cited by CPJ is up to 37 as I write this, according to a database being maintained by journalist Adam Rose. There are some harrowing reports of journalists’ being taken to the hospital and being struck in the head and in the eye. CNN’s Erin Burnett is quoted as saying, “The officers are also pushing us … They knew we’re media. They were just as happy to push me as to push anybody else.”

“We are greatly concerned by the reports of law enforcement officers’ shooting non-lethal rounds at reporters covering protests in Los Angeles. Any attempt to discourage or silence media coverage by intimidating or injuring journalists should not be tolerated,” said CPJ executive Katherine Jacobsen. “It is incumbent upon authorities to respect the media’s role of documenting issues of public interest.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists warns that violence against the press is an ongoing crisis

Photo (cc) 2021 by TapTheForwardAssist

A special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists warns that the anti-media animus that characterized the Trump presidency has continued unabated, and that it will continue to pose an ongoing threat to the safety of journalists regardless of who wins the presidential election.

Produced by CPJ journalist Katherine Jacobsen, the report, titled “On Edge: What the U.S. election could mean for journalists and global press freedom,” is chilling in its details and frightening in its broader implications. She writes:

Trump’s presidency has been widely seen as bad for press freedom. A 2020 CPJ report found that his administration escalated prosecution of news sources, interfered in the business of media owners, harassed journalists crossing U.S. borders, and used the Espionage Act — a law that has raised grave concerns about its potential to restrict reporting on national security issues — to indict WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. At the same time, Trump undermined the credibility of news outlets by lashing out at reporters, often on the president’s social media feeds, as “corrupt,” “dishonest,” and “enemies of the people.”

On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump has threatened to further his anti-press agenda by strengthening libel laws; weakening First Amendment protections; prosecuting reporters for  critical coverage; and investigating the parent company of NBC and MSNBC for the channels’ “vicious” news coverage. He has also called for National Public Radio (NPR) to be defunded. “They are a liberal disinformation machine,” he wrote of the public broadcasting organization on his Truth Social platform in an all-cap post. “Not one dollar!!!”

The denigration of U.S. media, coming at a time when shrinking newsroom budgets, the shuttering of local news publications, and record public mistrust of mainstream outlets have hampered their ability to counter the anti-press narrative, has continued to resonate in the years since Trump lost the 2020 election, helping to fuel extremist and fringe ideas on both the left and the right. The result is an increasingly precarious safety environment for reporters.

Much of the report comprises an overview of threats and violence directed against journalists starting with the attempted insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, and continuing to the present. At least 18 journalists were assaulted during the rioting at the Capitol, and nine people have been charged.

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Amanda Andrade-Rhoades, a freelance photographer who was on assignment for The Washington Post that day, was injured in the melee and rioters threatened to shoot her.

“Generally speaking, I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing,” she told CPJ. “But hearing the audio of January 6th while covering the committee meetings, that’s still frankly very difficult for me. There was a moment during the hearings where they played a piece of footage where you can see a very close friend of mine running down the hallway … having to hide for her life.”

Other incidents covered by the report include:

  • The murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German by a public official who was angered by his reporting and the frightening online abuse directed at another Review-Journal reporter, Sabrina Schnur, after Twitter’s sociopath-in-chief, Elon Musk, unleashed his mob against her.
  • The harassment and vandalism experienced by New Hampshire Public Radio reporter Lauren Chooljian, her parents and her editor following her reporting on allegations of sexual misconduct against a local business owner. Four men have been charged under federal law and one has been sentenced to prison.
  • A dramatic increase in lawsuits against journalists and news organizations, including Anna Wolfe of Mississippi Today, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting is the subject of a libel suit by the state’s former governor, Phil Bryant. The news organization is fighting an effort by Bryant to force it to turn over internal notes and other records.
  • Unprovoked attacks by police officers against journalists, including three photographers in Detroit who were injured by rubber bullets shot by an officer at a Black Lives Matter protest.

What happens in the U.S. affects press freedom globally, the CPJ report argues: “Over the past three decades, CPJ has documented how major policy shifts and the curtailment of civil liberties in the U.S. have been used to justify similar measures curbing press freedoms for journalists in other countries.” Examples cited include Morocco, Russia, Haiti, Palestinian journalists caught up in the Israel-Gaza war, and Brazil under former president (and Donald Trump ally) Jair Bolsonaro.

The report concludes with a letter sent to the two presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, asking that they sign a pledge to adopt a “respectful” tone with journalists, to take action when journalists are threatened with or subjected to violence, to support a federal shield law known as the PRESS Act that would protect reporters from the prying eyes of the government, and to promote press freedom around the world.

“The Harris campaign acknowledged receipt of CPJ’s letter,” CPJ says, “but neither candidate had signed the pledge by CPJ’s requested deadline of September 16.”