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The troubling arrest of a CNN journalist and camera crew in Minnesota last night is part of a pattern over the last decade, and it starts in part back in Minnesota in 2008 /1 https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1266336966452359168
In 2008 between 40 and 50 journalists were arrested while trying to cover protests outside the RNC in Minnesota. A group of those journalists sued St. Paul and Minneapolis and won, requiring the cities to undertake training for police on press freedom. https://www.twincities.com/2010/05/04/journalists-sue-over-arrests-at-2008-republican-national-convention-in-st-paul/ /2
In 2011 as Occupy Wall Street protests swept the nation, arrests of journalists also swept the nation. Here is @brianstelter writing about journalists arrests in November of 2011: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/business/media/occupy-wall-street-puts-the-coverage-in-the-spotlight.html /3
Over the course of 2011 and 2012 police around the country continued to arrest and detain journalists trying to cover those protests. A year later 5 journalists were arrested trying to cover the anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. https://www.rcfp.org/least-five-journalists-arrested-during-ows-protests/ /4
In 2014 @WesleyLowery of the Washington Post and Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post were detained by police in Ferguson https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-ferguson-washington-post-reporter-wesley-lowery-gives-account-of-his-arrest/2014/08/13/0fe25c0e-2359-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html as were at least 15 other journalists, according to @FreedomofPress https://freedom.press/news/documenting-the-arrests-of-journalists-in-ferguson/ /5
In 2017, following numerous attacks on journalists at political rallies and protests @cjr wrote that "Covering protests has become the riskiest job in journalism" https://www.cjr.org/special_report/covering-protests-threats-press-freedom-tracker.php /6
I spent a decade tracking these arrests because the First Amendment belongs to all of us, and these arrests are not just attacks on journalism, but also infringements on our rights as Americans. Our democracy was built on an informed public and a free press. /7
Today, the @uspresstracker has become the most comprehensive source documenting these kinds of threats to journalists. Follow them and explore their work here: https://pressfreedomtracker.us /8
