Broadcast journalist threatened at gunpoint in Texas

June 10, 2019
KCEN-TV reporter Emani Payne wrote on Facebook that she was threatened at gunpoint while reporting outside an apartment complex in Killeen, Texas, on May 30, 2019. “Yesterday was the most frightening experience of my reporting career thus far,” wrote Payne in a Facebook post. “I went to a bad area of Killeen to an apartment complex to follow up on a story.”Payne wrote that since she was alone, she recognized that it was time to leave once she saw violent …

Citizen journalist arrested for publishing information before local police

January 16, 2018
Citizen journalist Priscilla Villarreal was arrested by the Laredo Police Department and charged with two felony counts of “misuse of official information” on December 13, 2017. Villarreal — an independent journalist based in Laredo, Texas who is often known by her nickname “La Gordiloca” — published the name of a Border Patrol agent who committed suicide on her Facebook page in April, before the Laredo Police Department’s official release about the incident. The Laredo Morning Times reported on December 15 …