Journalists are facing attacks, both digital and physical

Friends of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker,

There’s so much to get through this month. I want to start by drawing your attention to a great set of articles and resources we just published, a culmination of a decade of tracking anti-press social media posts:

To get here, Tracker Senior Reporter Stephanie Sugars read nearly 62,000 of President Donald Trump’s posts, first on Twitter then on Truth Social, and sorted them into this incredible dataset when those posts targeted the press.

Trump has taken to social media nearly 3,500 times to rail against the press — from “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE” and “Fake News Media” to targeting individual journalists. That’s posting, on average, one anti-press post per day for 10 years.

“We keep this historical archive at a time when the public’s trust in media is at an all-time low,” Stephanie said about the dataset. “These posts form a revealing portrait of a political figure whose polarizing messaging has undermined press freedom and endangered journalists.”

Read the analysis on 10 years of anti-press social media posts, explore the posts and take a deep dive into the dataset for yourself.

On a programming note, I’m handing off the rest of this newsletter (and all of next month’s) to Stephanie, who will bring you what you need to know while I’m away.

‘Man, they’re targeting journalists’

As federal agents began raiding workplaces and areas where immigrant day laborers gather in and around Los Angeles early this month, protests erupted in opposition to the operations and the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown.

Starting June 6, demonstrators clashed with local law enforcement officers and federal agents — and journalists were not only caught in the crossfire but deliberately targeted.

Freelance photojournalist Michael Nigro was shaken when LA police officers fired three crowd-control munitions past his head in quick succession during protests in the city’s Little Tokyo neighborhood June 9. It felt targeted, he told me in an interview.

An hour and a half after the first volley, a round struck his helmet, despite the clear “PRESS” labels in all caps on both sides. A colleague photographed him after — seen above left, with a mark from the impact clearly visible above his left eye.

“These moments are when I feel that chilling effect that they want to put on journalists,” Nigro said. “It felt intentional, simply because at that close range and with the sights that they have. One inch down and it would have gotten me right in the forehead.”

As of today, the Tracker has documented nine arrests or detentions of journalists, 20 assaults, multiple instances of equipment being searched or damaged, and dozens of journalists affected by chemical irritants like tear gas and pepper balls, all while covering protests in California.

The Tracker is still investigating nearly 50 other reports of journalists targeted in California alone, and others have been arrested or assaulted at protests nationally — from the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, to downtown Portland, Oregon.

Multiple affected journalists, news outlets and press organizations have already filed lawsuits challenging the law enforcement response and calling on the courts to bar further abuses against the media.

Other notable updates and incidents

• Disappointing court decisions:
  • On June 4, a North Carolina appeals court upheld trespassing convictions against Asheville Blade reporters Veronica Coit and Matilda Bliss stemming from their arrests while documenting a homeless encampment sweep in a public park in 2021.
  • On June 6, a federal appeals court panel partially reversed the order forcing the Trump administration to let Associated Press reporters cover events in the Oval Office, on Air Force One and at Mar-a-Lago.
  • On June 17, the Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the assertion that not even the partial address of a public official’s residence could be shared, even if newsworthy. The court did determine, however, that the information was “a matter of public concern.”
• Also on June 17, New York City Mayor Eric Adams barred Daily News reporter Chris Sommerfeldt from future news conferences, accusing him of being “disrespectful” when attempting to ask a question. After the ban was lifted, Adams said during a presser a week later that Sommerfeldt should be grateful he hadn’t been “dragged away.”