Washington Post journalist subpoenaed for documents from college reporting

April 22, 2021
Journalist Fenit Nirappil was subpoenaed on April 22, 2021, in a lawsuit involving former Chicago police officers for documents related to his work on two stories for the Medill Innocence Project nearly a decade earlier, according to the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press.Nirappil, now a journalist for The Washington Post, was a part of a team of Northwestern University students who investigated the conviction of former police officer Ariel Gomez during the 2011-2012 academic year, according to …

Student journalist shoved to ground by state trooper while covering Brooklyn Center protest

April 16, 2021
Estelle Timar-Wilcox, news editor for the Macalester College student news site The Mac Weekly, was shoved by a Minnesota State Patrol trooper while covering a protest in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on April 16, 2021, she told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.The fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center on April 11 rekindled a wave of racial justice protests that began almost a year earlier. Wright’s death occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis was on …

Student journalist hit with projectile while covering protest in Brooklyn Center

April 14, 2021
Kori Suzuki, media editor for The Mac Weekly, the student news site of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, was hit with a crowd-control munition while covering a protest in Brooklyn Center on April 14, 2021, he told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.The fatal police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center on April 11 rekindled a wave of racial justice protests that began almost a year earlier. Wright’s death occurred as a former police officer in nearby Minneapolis …

Student journalist detained during LA election-related protest

November 4, 2020
Student journalist Emily Holshouser was one of at least four journalists detained while covering election-related protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 4, 2020.Holshouser, who writes for California State University Northridge’s student publication The Daily Sundial, tweeted that she was covering a protest scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. outside City Hall in downtown LA.When the event dispersed at 6:30 p.m., Holshouser followed a small group of remaining demonstrators as they walked …

Student photojournalist arrested, equipment seized during LA protest

September 8, 2020
Pablo Unzueta, a freelance photojournalist and video editor for California State University, Long Beach’s newspaper, the Daily 49er, was arrested while documenting protests in the South Los Angeles area on Sept. 8, 2020.Unzueta told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was following a group of protesters as they gathered for the fourth consecutive night outside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department following the fatal shooting of Dijon Kizzee, a Black man, by deputies on Aug. 31.At approximately 8:30 p.m. on …

Student reporter detained while covering Richmond protest

July 26, 2020
Andrew Ringle, the executive editor of the Commonwealth Times, the independent student newspaper of Virginia Commonwealth University, was detained by police while covering a protest against police violence in Richmond, Virginia, on July 26, 2020.Ringle told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker in a phone interview that he and his news editor, Eduardo Acevedo, had heard about the protest in Richmond’s Monroe Park after seeing a flyer online. Richmond Police Chief Gerald Smith would later describe the flyer as using the …

Commonwealth Times editor detained while covering Richmond protest

July 25, 2020
Eduardo Acevedo, news editor for The Commonwealth Times, an independent newspaper run by Virginia Commonwealth University students, said he was detained by police while covering a protest in Richmond, Virginia, the night of July 25, 2020.Protests against racial inequality and police brutality were held in Richmond throughout the summer in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people at the hands of police.Acevedo told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he and two colleagues from …
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