Journalists Carolyn Cole and Molly Hennessy-Fiske were reporting for the Los Angeles Times on the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis on May 30, 2020, when they were brutally attacked by the Minnesota State Patrol. Last week, they settled a lawsuit against the city for $1.2 million.
It’s a welcome sign of accountability for police who violate the rights of journalists covering protests. But nearly four years after the Floyd protests led to a spike in journalists arrested and assaulted, protests remain a dangerous place for reporters.
Just a few months into 2024, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has documented four arrests or detentions of journalists covering protests in New York, Tennessee, and California.
None of these arrests have received much attention or public outcry. That’s a shame. These arrests violate journalists’ rights, and they undermine the right of the public to learn about newsworthy events happening in their communities.
They also show the disturbing and stubborn persistence of a system of policing that either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about First Amendment rights. A closer look at each of the cases documented by the Tracker so far this year reveals that — even after large settlements or acknowledgments by the federal government that journalists must be allowed to cover protests — police around the country are still routinely arresting reporters who are simply doing their jobs.
Hellbound and Down 