2021 QUICK FACTS

54 arrests/detainments of journalists 129 assaults of journalists 16 journalists/news organizations subpoenaed 32 journalists with equipment damaged

Featured Articles

Parent accosts Michigan journalist after school board meeting

August 2, 2021
Reporter Eric Baerren was attacked by a parent who wanted him to delete photos from his camera on Aug. 2, 2021, after covering a school board meeting, he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.Baerren told the Tracker that the school board at Mount Pleasant High School in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, had been discussing wearing masks in school and he had been covering the story for the Mount Pleasant Morning Sun and taking photographs.He told the Tracker that after the meeting, …

Documentarian pushed, sprayed with chemical irritant while covering LA anti-mask protest

July 22, 2021
Documentary writer, director and producer Rocky Romano was shoved and sprayed with bear mace and his camera was knocked from his hands while he was covering anti-mask protests in Los Angeles, California, on July 22, 2021.Romano told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was covering demonstrations outside the Cedars-Sinai Breast Health Services Building in West Hollywood, where demonstrators had gathered to protest the clinic’s requirement that patients wear masks indoors. Similar rules have been put in place across the country …
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is a database of press freedom incidents in the United States — everything from arrests of journalists and the seizure of their equipment to interrogations at the U.S. border and physical attacks. The Press Freedom Tracker documents incidents across the country, involving national, state and local authorities. Read More

Photographer held in multiple kettles by LA police while covering Wi Spa protest

July 17, 2021
Freelance photographer Joey Scott said he and other members of the media were twice corralled and stopped from moving by police as they covered a protest in Los Angeles on July 17, 2021.Scott said and other journalists were reporting on protests around the Wi Spa when they were held by police using a crowd-control technique called kettling, which corrals and restricts people from dispersing. The spa, located in L.A.’s Koreatown, became a flashpoint for anti-transgender demonstrators as the result of …

Photojournalist charged with grand larceny following filing assault complaint against NYPD officer

July 6, 2021
Independent photojournalist Gabe Quinones said he was arrested on charges of grand larceny by the New York City Police Department on July 6, 2021.The department alleges that Quinones attempted to steal an NYPD officer’s baton on June 5, the photojournalist told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. On that evening, Quinones was covering demonstrations in Washington Square Park, which had been the site of both protests and street parties in the weeks preceding. Gothamist reported that for several months the NYPD …

Trump Justice Department secretly obtained phone records of 4 New York Times reporters

January 1, 2020
The U.S. Department of Justice informed The New York Times on June 2, 2021, that the agency secretly obtained phone records of four of the newspaper’s reporters during the Trump administration, the Times reported.The Justice Department, now under President Joe Biden, sent a letter to the Times saying that in 2020 it had obtained phone logs spanning nearly four months of 2017 for multiple Times reporters — Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt — as part …

Trump DoJ obtained 2017 phone records of 3 Washington Post reporters

January 1, 2020
The U.S. Department of Justice on May 3, 2021, notified Washington Post reporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, and former Post reporter Adam Entous, that it had obtained their phone records from 2017 over reporting on the Trump administration's communications with Russia during the 2016 election, the Post reported.The Justice Department wrote in three separate letters that they obtained the reporters' phone records from April 15, 2017 to July 31, 2017, the Post reported. The article said the letters don’t …
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