Press obstructed, threatened in and outside DNC

Journalists covering the August 2024 Democratic National Convention encountered hostility, threats and efforts to block their coverage both in and outside Chicago’s United Center.

Within the event venue, issues over coverage started early. In the months leading up to the convention, concerns were raised over the number of seats afforded to print reporters by the journalists who represent congressional correspondents and are in charge of press facilities at the national conventions.

In a statement to the DNC shared with Semafor, the Standing Committee of Correspondents said the number of dedicated and accessible workspaces for journalists had been cut by hundreds compared to previous conventions.

At the same time, WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR station, reported that the costs to cover the convention — for access, seating, internet speed — were also significantly higher than years prior and in comparison to the Republican National Convention the month before.

According to the outlet, an assigned seat with a table and electrical outlet at the DNC had a $751 price tag at the early-bird rate, and $911 in the days leading up to the convention. At the RNC, a similar setup cost $100.

A DNC spokesperson dismissed accusations that the convention wasn’t properly accommodating members of the press.

“Democrats value a free press, and our convention is a reflection of that,” spokesperson Emily Soong wrote in a statement to Semafor. “We’ve prioritized making sure members of the media have the resources they need to bring the story of our convention out to their communities from both inside and outside of the convention hall.”

But Drop Site editor and reporter Ryan Grim recounted that some delegates and event security were quick to block reporters from documenting evidence the party was not fully unified.

When several delegates unfurled a “Stop Arming Israel” banner as President Joe Biden took the stage on Aug. 19, for instance, others used their signs to block Grim’s camera and that of a Democracy Now reporter; still others attempted to rip the banner away or, at the direction of staff, block it with their signs.

“One delegate followed me through the crowd relentlessly — with frankly impressive determination — putting his ‘USA’ sign in front of my phone as I worked to avoid him,” Grim wrote.

A staff member also approached Grim and told him that the area he was in, and where he had been filming without issue for nearly 10 minutes, was for delegates only and asked that he move.

Outside the convention center, similar demands for journalists to move from a particular area were commonplace at demonstrations — most of which focused on the Israel-Gaza war — scheduled throughout the week.

Multiple journalists told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that officials and officers with the Chicago Police Department repeatedly gave conflicting or unclear orders, segregated the press from the protesters, and threatened journalists with arrest or the revocation of their press credentials.

“It was very clear to me from the very first day that the police mission was: Whatever is going to happen, we want to get press out of there,” photojournalist Mostafa Bassim said during a panel hosted by Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the Tracker is a project.

Every police order, videographer Ford Fischer said, “was backed by the threat of arrest, which actually happened to some people.” At least three journalists were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct while covering a protest outside the Israeli consulate on Aug. 20.

Credentials belonging to two of the arrested journalists were not returned until after the National Press Photographers Association and the journalists’ attorneys notified Chicago police that seizing them was improper.

Journalists reported that police repeatedly threatened to seize press credentials, with Tom Ahern, the CPD’s deputy director of news affairs and communication, often seen at the front of protests directing press off the street and threatening to revoke the credentials of those who didn’t comply.

A New York Post reporter’s credentials were also ripped off the lanyard he was wearing, and an officer tried to do the same to independent journalist Tina-Desiree Berg.

“One of them came up to me and tried to grab mine from around my neck and I pulled them away and I’m like, ‘Back off.’ He said, ‘I’m revoking your credentials.’ And I said, ‘You don’t get to do that,’” Berg told the Tracker. “He was surprised that I talked back, I guess. I told him, ‘You’re not in charge of my credentials, you don’t get to revoke anything. There’s still a First Amendment in this country.’”

A different officer then filmed close-ups of Berg’s face and press credentials. The Tracker received reports of at least one additional journalist whose identification and face had been photographed.

By the final night of the convention, Aug. 22, the journalists had had enough. During what local independent journalist Raven Geary referred to as the “Press Riot at Union Park,” police struggled to respond to the large number of press still present when a small group of protesters sat in the street to block traffic, and many reporters resisted police orders to disperse.

“They pushed us off the street, onto the sidewalk, into the grass of Union Park, and then threatened media members with arrest if they didn’t disperse,” journalist Mel Buer told the Tracker.

Shawn Mulcahy, the news editor for the Chicago Reader, said police directed a dispersal order specifically at the media, in violation of the department’s own policies on First Amendment rights. The policies, updated less than two weeks before the convention, specify that credentialed members of the press are exempt from crowd dispersal orders.

The journalists raised alarm over the order and challenged it, Mulcahy said. Ahern, alongside CPD’s Chief of Patrol Jon Hein, ultimately walked it back.

During the Freedom of the Press Foundation panel, reporter Brian Karem challenged the norm that journalists shouldn’t publicize such infringements on their First Amendment rights, saying that’s what police count on.

“They want you not to report it. The fact of the matter is, you’re not making yourself the story: They did that,” he said. “You did not do anything but your job, and you need to stand up for the First Amendment.”