Hi, everyone. Just going to wait a couple of minutes to let people join and make sure that all of Our speakers have access here. Hold on one second. You
Seth, okay, I think we're ready to go. Well. Thanks everyone for joining us today. This is Seth, stern. I'm the Director of Advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation. We are a nonprofit organization that protects and defends press freedom both through our advocacy works through the US press freedom tracker, which Stephanie sugars is here representing, which is a database that documents press freedom violations across the United States, ranging from assaults of journalists, arrests of journalists, subpoenas of journalists, confiscations or damages of journalists' equipment and various other sorts of violations. We also do digital security training, and we've got tools like securedrop and danger zone that journalists are able to use to communicate with sources safely and confidentially. So today's x space is going to be an opportunity for independent journalists who covered the DNC to talk about what they saw there and what they experienced there, particularly when it comes to the Chicago Police Department and other law enforcement agencies that were on hand and how they dealt with journalists during the protests outside of the DNC. We actually had an x space earlier this week on the subject featuring press freedom advocates and attorneys who were either there or involved in some of the legal issues that came up, and Talia, Jane, one of the journalists speaking today, suggested in the comments during that thread that it would be a good idea to get the perspectives of some of the independent journalists who are on the ground. And I couldn't agree more. So that's that's what we're here to do. Since we've got quite a few people joining us, rather than conducting interviews of each of the journalists. I'm sort of just going to let them have the floor for a few minutes each. Then we will get some reactions from Stephanie at the at the tracker. And you know, if we've got some time left and there's more people want to say, we can open the floor afterwards for a more informal, free flowing conversation. So I am mostly going to go in alphabetical order of the journalists we've got joining us today. First up, we have got Ford Fisher. Ford, if you're there, do you want to unmute yourself? And you know, tell us what you think is important for us to know about what you experienced covering the DNC last week,
right? Thank you for doing this, and I definitely appreciate I want to call out the press freedom tracker, just in general, has been an awesome kind of resource. I've too many times had occasion to speak to Stephanie over the years, to have her log things. I think I would firstly say, like, I'm not. Going to speak for the journalists who were arrested in Chicago, but I definitely would say that that's chiefly among my concerns, that essentially everything I'm about to say, in essence, was backed by the threat of arrest, and which actually happened to some people. So I'm not one of those people, and I can't speak for them, but I think it does sort of speak volumes that the types of things that the police were doing were ultimately backed by that. So a name that I think we're probably all going to end up talking about was Tom Ahern was who, I guess is, the deputy director of news affairs and communication at Chicago police, was kind of this constant figure at sort of the front lines of the various protests that happened from Monday through Thursday. And you know, honestly, I didn't know who he was until basically trying to understand why he was acting the way he was. So at the front lines of each of these situations, basically whenever there was some kind of attention or an issue between the police and protesters. Mr. Ahern was very frequently kind of jumping to the front to specifically tell press that if you don't get away, I'm going to take away your press badges, which I found to be sort of a bizarre kind of threat I certainly understand the basic notion that if, if individuals are trespassing, or whatever the issue may be, that press is not necessarily magically exempt, in some way, from from, you know, consequence for being in that same spot or something. But honestly, the the threat of taking away credentials. I don't think in 10 years of doing this kind of work, of covering protests, that I've heard that specific claim, he was talking about it as if he was going to take sort of credentials off the necks of journalists. The other thing that I thought was really unique and not for the better, in the way that the Chicago Police dealt with journalists, as opposed to, you know, there's certainly issues with how police deal with journalists and all kinds of other places. But something else that was unique about Chicago was that there seemed to be this very concerted effort, when possible, by the police, under the leadership of Tom Ahern, to sort of segregate the press from the protesters. So I would particularly point to the example of on Tuesday night in the demonstration outside of the Israeli embassy. There ended up being in the it was this sort of like tight urban environment where you had had two large buildings on either side of the street. And so you kind of have two directions that are walkable, and police had essentially, kind of blocked the whole crowd in on either side of it. So although they weren't being kettled for the purpose of an arrest, I think it was sort of a kettle like formation. And when that happened, you kind of had press there, along with protesters, and then kind of facing the police and Ahern, as well as other police, were basically going around trying to specifically pick out the press and make them exit the area that the protesters had been able to be. And I don't want to take up too much time, because I think that other people probably had the same experience and could expand on this more, but in effect, they were actually acting more controlling of the physical space that that press was able to be than the protesters. And my guess is that if inquired about he would probably justify that by saying that if they had to use, you know, some crowd control mechanisms or something that this is a an effort to stop the press from being targeted in that way. Um, that didn't end up coming to fruition. And ultimately, the people who were there were able to sort of march in another direction. Um, but to those who would have wanted to take still photographs or videos or even interview those protesters in that moment. You know, the actions of Tom Ahern specifically prevented them from doing so. So again, I my guess is that my experience there matches a lot of other people, so I'd be happy to pass it on to the next person.
Thanks for that's, that's, that's really interesting and similar to what we have heard, I would just note, in terms of journalists, you know, not being exempt from crowd control. It is, you know, my opinion, our opinion, and the opinion of radicals, including the US Department of Justice, that journalists actually are exempt from dispersal orders targeting protesters, because journalists need to be able to cover those dispersals and to cover police conduct. So I just don't want to give a Hearn the benefit of the doubt. In our view, his actions were. Were clearly unconstitutional. So just wanted to make that note. I'm going to depart from alphabetical order here because Kevin gustola asked to wait till the end to let some people who spent more time on the ground have the mic before him. So we've got Mel booer up next. Sorry if I mispronounced your last name, Mel,
it's okay. Viewer, you can hear me right. Yep, we're good. Okay. First off, I want to say thanks for opening up the space. You know, Tali and I were both in the space on Monday, and it gave us a lot of really good context about the conversations that Mickey and others were having with the Chicago Police ahead of the DNC. I'm really glad that we got a chance to get that context. I would just echo what Forta said, especially on Tuesday, it seemed to me that the way that they set up this kettle, because it felt like it is, they closed off one entire side of the street, on one side of Accenture tower, so that folks were forced to be pushed in a different direction so they could try and control the way that the march was happening. Is my sense of things. Yeah, I, you know, I was on the ground from Sunday through Thursday, through all of the protests. And the one thing that I really want to kind of drive home here, and that superintendent Snelling of the Chicago Police Department made clear after Tuesday, was that the police presence in the city was meant To overwhelm right, not just protesters, but also press. And the way that they did this was sort of like an ad hoc, kind of chaotic sort of sense, where some press, myself included, had the Chicago Police Department credentials, some of them did not the way that they treated the press based on what credentials you had, seemed to me, from my perspective, slightly different. I found it easier to kind of move between the police spikes, even though I was I had to consistently ask to pass through these various areas. And not every some other, I'm sure other members of the press can speak to this, but it seemed to me that not everyone got that treatment. It was very chaotic. We were getting very conflicting orders. Depending on who you talk to, you could either stand where you were or you were pushed back. You couldn't move in a certain direction. So it was very difficult to do the job, and to do it in a way that didn't run afoul of what the police were asking us to do. And again, I do want to drive home as well that if the sort of understanding is that members of the press can stand on the sidewalk and continue to film dispersals or things of that nature at multiple points. Even though we were pushed onto the sidewalk, we were still told to disperse, particularly Thursday night, 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. And that was, you know, chaos. It was just chaos. It was really difficult to be able to understand what we could and couldn't do where we could and couldn't be. And I, myself and other folks that I worked with on the ground over the course of those couple of days, were subject to very aggressive behavior from the riot police. Phones getting knocked out of hands. I got pushed by batons, you know, told directly by superintendent Snelling on Tuesday, like I see your press pass, but you gotta move, you know. And it's like, where do we go? No direction, you know. And so, yeah, I would just say that over the course of the four or five days of marches and protests, the way that the Chicago Police Department conducted themselves, both with respect to protesters and with respect to the you know, large amount of of press that were there made it extremely difficult for us to do our jobs and for these protesters to assemble and march and do what they came there to do. So that's kind of my thoughts there, and I know that other people have things to speak on, so that's all I'm going to say, thank
you. Thanks so much. Mel, you mentioned the intent to overwhelm with the police presence, but I wonder if the police actually were sort of overwhelmed by the sheer number of journalists who were around, and perhaps not as many protesters as expected coming out at times. Times, at least at the ones I attended, it really looked like journalists outnumbered protesters. I don't know if cops were really bargaining for that much press being there and her and just seemed entirely overwhelmed. You know, in addition to barking out unconstitutional orders, just look at the videos of him. The guy looks panicked, yeah,
I would say in terms of, and this came up on Monday too, and this will be my final thought in terms of the chaos of it, because there was some breakdown, some admittedly a little funny breakdowns of these bike cops falling over each other and trying to figure out how to, you know, reassess this corralling sort of movement that they wanted to do for the individuals who were on the streets, out of all the people who should be calm, cool and collected, and know what his position is, and know how to, You know, assess situations on a minute by minute basis is Ahern, and I don't think he did his job correctly. I don't think he did it well. I'm surprised that he still has his job, frankly, and I would hope that they would be reflective and sort of figure out what went wrong there, because it was a very confusing couple of days to try and figure out where you could be without being subject to arrest. And ultimately, you know, I won't speak for the independent journalists who were arrested, but it seemed to me that in that chaos, they were pulled out of the crowd after given conflicting directions and were arrested. So you know that. You know it total mess from my perspective.
Thanks again. Mel, next up we've got Mostafa Basim, again, sorry if I mispronounced your last name. I believe Mostafa actually documented a couple of the arrests. So you might have some some more specific insights about the arrest, but anything you've got to say, Mustafa,
no, actually, that was perfect. Basim, usually people say it. Basim, so thank you. Thank you. So I don't want to repeat what what other people have already said, but yeah, I would just say that 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 pressed out of there. We don't, you didn't want us to, like to cover what exactly was happening from the very first day when protesters went over the siege, the first thing police did was push journalists outside, and when we went to the side and were trying to film from there, that guy, Tom Aaron, came to me and started telling me, I need to leave, or he's gonna confiscate my press pass. And then even later on, when they were trying to disperse protesters from the park, I was moving along with them as they pushed people. I was moving along. I was not standing anywhere, and I still got pushed by batons. And when I looked at him, he was like, I was like, telling him, I'm moving along, but you need to let me do my job. And he was like he didn't respond to that. He just said, You need to leave now, or I'm gonna take your first class away. And then on the second day, this is where police clashed with protesters that they actually so at one point, police made a long line, and then they started asking journalists to move to the other side of the line. And I thought when they asked that they are going to let us cover from this other side. But then actually, once a lot, like several journalists went beyond, like this police line, they started pushing them to the other side where they cannot see anything that's happening. I went back. And then at this point where police kettled everyone in, and they started pushing people into each other, and there was no place to go for anyone. There was like, like in front of a building I went on top of like this, like, higher ground there to start filming, because they were arresting people. And then a police officer, or a couple of them followed me up there and started pushing me, and I like, and telling me to get out. And I was like, to get out. Where? Like, there's no place to go. And then when I said that, he tried to pull me to arrest me. So I pulled back, and I said, I'm impressed. I'm pressed. So he let me go, and then told me to leave. And I was like, like, there's literally no place to go. Where, where can I go to? And then he arrested other protester, and there was another journalist that he took that's like in one of the videos I recorded. And then one of the, like, supervisors officers was standing there and was like, telling everyone to leave. And I looked at him, and I was like, where to go? Like, look around. There's no place for us to go. You kiddin everyone in. And at this point that was like, Maybe after about 10 minutes from killing everyone, he asked the officers to, like, make a way for people to leave. And that was when, like, we went outside. But it was after like, maybe 10 minutes of like, like, literally pushing everyone to the point that you couldn't breathe. That was, like, my experience on the second day I didn't attend, the last day of the protest. I left early that day. But yeah, that's pretty much what happened.
Sorry, my mic was off for a second. A lot was made of the second day protests having been, you know, unpermitted and organized by a more radical organization than other protests. How much do you think that played into the difference in how they were policed so I
mean,
even if that was the case, still like that has nothing to do with us journalists, like everyone was there to do their job, we like, from the beginning, they asked us to go to the sidewalks even though the roads were blocked. So it was like very absurd request, but everyone went to the sidewalk, and we tried to cover from there, and, like, we pretty much tried to, like, follow all the instructions they gave us, but still, like, they were very aggressive towards us, so I don't really see, like, why, like, they were doing that. I mean, like, even, like, whatever kind of protest was happening like we're supposed to be giving a space and a way to be able to cover what's happening.
Agreed. Thanks, Mustafa. We were supposed to have Raven from jinx press, yet, unfortunately, Raven can't make it. But follow Jinx press, if you want some independent journalism covering the Chicago area. It's at Jinx press and and hopefully Raven will be able to join us for for a future event. Next we've got Sean Beckner car Mitchell Sean, if you want to take the floor.
Yeah. So
regarding Tom Ahern, I sort of ran afoul of him the very first day, and noticed some pretty troubling behavior throughout the week. The first time I had just arrived at the process, I missed maybe the first, like two minutes of the march, so I had to, kind of run from and notice that there was this, this guy screaming at the press protest in a quote, but no idea who this guy was, and I remember thinking, What an absurd little clown. You have 1000 people. I am going to switch to Wi Fi, understanding that my signal is a little bit low.
I we can make out what you're saying, but there's a little of interference with your audio. We heard, sorry about
that. I just switched to a different that's good. I guess I just switched to a different signal, so hopefully you can hear me a little bit better. But yeah, you know, there's this guy screaming at the press. Well, you have 1000s of people marching, you know, telling them to get out of the way, telling them to get, you know, off to the side, to be clear. And I think probably everyone in this space knows this. But as as a video journalist, my job is to capture the essence of the event. So part of that is to when there's a large protest of, you know, let's say 1000s of people. I don't think we've ever really gotten an exact number. It's difficult when it's that large. You need to in order to have usable footage, get video of the protesters. One of the best shots you can do is from the front when I have some weirdo polo,
which has this weirdo screaming, you know, get out of the way. Press, get out of the way. And B, it makes it difficult to go in and out, you know. So I he was a constant challenge. And I want to be clear, my press credentials are not. Not with the Chicago Police Department. I don't cover things in Chicago that often. Threatening to revoke my credentials is not something he has the power to do. That is not property that belongs to Chicago Police Department. That would actually, in my opinion, be theft, and he has no authority to do so for the most part, you know, the police just seemed completely overwhelmed, which is shocking given just how striking the the large amount of the police force was. I was reminded of, you know, the Powell Doctrine, you know, where you have just this gigantic amount of police. It's hard for me to imagine, particularly on Tuesday, when you had it most 100 protesters, them not being able to contain any situation just because a guy with a camera is sort of slightly nearby. On Tuesday, constant, conflicting orders, go to the sidewalk, and then you're on the sidewalk, and the police are literally like, shoving press. I saw a member of a unicorn riot just get, like, manhandled through the crowd and shoved into this little mini kettle of press members. Just an absolute disaster. And very clear that the Chicago Police Department just did not know how to handle the media. And when you have someone whose job it is ostensibly to handle the media, I think that any negative feedback that he gets is entirely on him and his actions as you know, a deputy director reflect directly on the Chicago Police Department that being said, you know, despite the fact that, you know, I got shoved a few times and things like that, you know, I was not arrested. So I want to be clear that, you know, that's the main concern whenever a member of the press is arrested, that is a failure on the behalf of law enforcement. And you know, the number seems to keep growing as far as press that were arrested, specifically on Tuesday, the protest outside the Israeli consulate. And the one other thing I wanted to add was, again, you know, my job is to cover the protest. If you segment me all the way over into a little corner where I can barely get footage of anything but the buildings. Chicago's a beautiful city. I love the buildings. I would love to photograph the building someday, but that's not what my assignment was. My assignment was to cover the protest, and anything that makes it difficult to do so is not just a violation of First Amendment rights, but also adds to a lack of transparency within the Chicago Police Department. You know, if you have nothing to hide, then you will allow people to fill so I guess that's just what I'll leave with for now.
Thanks, Sean. Was there any communication beforehand from CPD or any guidance issued that was in any way helpful, unhelpful. Did it coincide with what actually happened or not?
If Sean's still there, he can answer. If not, it's just something I was curious about. Next up we've got, uh, Talia Jane, who's whose idea this was so Talia interested in what you've got to
say, Thanks, Seth, I'm excited that you went for it, because usually my ideas are much more chaotic. Um, there was a couple of notes from the discussion that you had on Monday, where it was believed that three to four members of the press had been arrested by CPD on Tuesday, and we're still getting info that it seems possible that there's six, and we don't have all of their names, but you know, that's at least double what was reported out as of Tuesday night, echoing what everyone else was saying that there were a lot of conflicting orders, you know, CPD and the mayor and you know, everyone in Chicago made a lot of noise about how much training CPD had been doing for crowd control. They boasted these enormous numbers. They had cops out there with professional cameras photographing the police lines to sort of, you know, boast about their presence at these protests. And then when it came to actually, know. Knowing what to do it just like the the whole ass fell out of it, they didn't know how to handle press. There were a lot of conflicting things that we were told on, you know, on Monday, when protesters breached the two fences, there were a significant number of press between those fences, between part 578, and the DNC. And I saw Aaron like there was a photographer near me who asked him, I don't have CPD credentials, am I okay to document this? And Aaron said, Yeah, as long as you stay with the other press, you're acting as press. You know, that's fine. And he confirmed that again when I asked the theory being that if you are engaging in press activities, you are clearly not participating in the protest. And as long as you stay with press, it's fine. And then, after the fence had been breached, a number of press continued to hang around. Part 578, there were, you know, mainstream like news cameras setting up, doing stand ups to report back on the previous fence breaching and, you know, protesters getting pushed out and arrested. At one point, the press gaggle was so kind of, it was, it was kind of foreshadowing, but the press gaggle between the two fences was kind of stubborn about wanting to stay to make sure they could document whatever the police would do that they actually obstructed access for protesters who were trying to avoid getting arrested, which was a problem, and That's, you know, something to discuss another time, but press continued hanging out at the park, and CPD brought in a flood of cops, and then started doing the Move back, move back, move back. And it wasn't until they had arrested another three people who, you know just didn't want to move that they actually started announcing the park has been closed because the fence was breached. And I said to a white shirt, I think it was Brooks. I was like, You could have told us that from the beginning, because there were pressed with their tripods and their, you know, soap boxes and like they were trying to do their jobs, and they ended up getting partially stuck trying to get all their gear out of the way of this massive surge of cops. I saw another indie get stuck behind the line of cops, and then a US, like Secret Service cop, grabbed him by his shirt and, you know, threw him out of from behind the police line into the front of the police line to then get shoved. We were, you know, squeezed and couldn't move, and I was getting screamed at because I couldn't move, because there was a ton of people in front of me, tons of cops behind me, into my side and just saying, like you could have, you could have just announced that the park is closed and given us time to collect our belongings and leave, and instead, they chose not to do that. They chose this overwhelming show of force for things that it wasn't really necessary. There wasn't any sort of coherency behind it, so much as wanting to seem tough and trying to seem tough to press who are there to work is a losing battle. You end up having situations where on Thursday night, Ahern tried to direct the press to stay behind an arbitrary line, and there was a photographer next to me who said, is that an order or an ordinance? Because in order, we're not going to listen to that if it's a city ordinance directing press to keep a specific distance, that's something that we will take into account, right? And then the press, instead of listening to him, broke around that line, went around behind him, and then flooded the street to document an arrest of a protester. And then press just took the street, ended up pushing the CPD bikes back and pushing the police line away, and then the cops just left because it was mostly press. And on Tuesday night, when press were arrested, Ahern actually, like forcefully ripped the press credentials New York City press credentials of photographer Josh Pacheco off of their neck, ripping their hair. They told me that AHan did this, and said, you don't get to keep your your credentials because you're being detained. Those credentials, along with the CPD credentials of another member of the press, magically ended up at the lawyer's office for the members of the press that had been detained, and they were able to retrieve those and continue wearing them. Come Thursday night, CPD was taking photos of press people's CPD badges, and, you know, threatening to confiscate them, which was a little bit absurd, because the conflict the convention was over, so like it's, you're just basically threatening. To steal a souvenir at that point. There were other members of the press who had New York City credentials that CPD ripped off their neck, which they do not have the authority to do. There was a guy with a camera who when the police came through and formed that kettle on the sidewalk where they did those mass arrests on Tuesday, they were directing press to leave the area, and one person didn't have any credentials, but he was using a camera, and he was documenting. He was working as press, and CPD wouldn't let him pass, because the cop was like, Oh, he doesn't have credentials. And then another supervisor had to come over and allow him through. And this guy was like, terrified that he was going to get arrested while trying to do his job. Meanwhile, I was, you know, as soon as I saw that JP, Josh Pacheco had been arrested, I started yelling my head off with them, like, demanding answers as to why they're arresting press. And my understanding is that they flooded into this space and just started grabbing anyone at the exact same time that they were also trying to direct press to leave the area. So press started to move based on that order, and then they grabbed them as they were leaving, and then they charged them with disorderly conduct, which is, you know, just absurd. So you know, for all of this, this bluster that CPD and the mayor's office have made praising CPD about how well they handled everything they were not equipped to handle this press gaggle, and this is a typical press gaggle for New York City, but because of how they behaved, I think is what led to this sort of additional stubbornness on Thursday from the press of like, we're not Listening to you. We're going to do our jobs, and you are irrelevant like you, like you know, because they cross that boundary of arresting press and have been just behaving wildly incoherently through the whole week.
Thanks so much, Talia. And if you have any more information about those potential fourth, fifth, and I think six arrests that you can pass along to the press freedom tracker. Please do I know you know how to get in touch with them. You mentioned the the cops photographing press passes, which was something that I was interested in. Heard about relatively recently, whose press passes? Were they photographing everybody's people that they had threatened or perceived as troublemakers, and what do you think the objective was of their doing that?
So my understanding is it was anyone that was near them. They just started documenting those. There was one reporter that I know he was standing on a median away from the crowd, and a cop grabbed his CPD credential and took a photo of it with his phone. And he said, What are you doing? Like I can take a picture of your badge, also like this. What are you doing? And he wasn't doing anything but observing at a distance, and CPD had told him that, in effect, the press at large had become obnoxious, and so he was going to revoke this one specific person's press card because he was near him. It again, wasn't coherent. It was just trying to, you know, one up the press, which is a losing battle because we are stubborn, but yeah, it didn't, it didn't make sense, and it didn't seem like it was any kind of punitive thing. But I did notice that people started wearing their press credentials backwards to deter against that.
Now, that's interesting. Well, thanks so much. Talia. Up next, we've got Tina Burke, if you're still here, I
am still here. Can you hear me? Okay, yep. Okay, great. So, you know, a lot of lot has been said already, so I'm going to try to just fill in some details, not to recover ground that was already discussed. You know, the one thing that bothered me the most is this threat of revoking press credentials. I saw this repeatedly, time and time again. I had a lieutenant come up to me on Tuesday night, I had been up on a median plant area. I was out of the way of police operations. Just tried to document what was happening. A police officer came up behind me, pulled me down to the ground, pretty roughly. I, you know, I was like, Wait, what are you doing? I'm press I, you know, he started yelling at me. I backed up. The next thing I know, I had a lieutenant come over and basically say, I'm going to revoke your credentials. He tried to grab them off of me, from around my neck. I pulled them back. I'm like, You can't do that. I can't believe you're actually saying that to be at that point, he pulled out his camera phone. He filmed my face close up, and then panned down and filmed my credentials close up. So I just, you know, pulled up my credentials, stuck it next to my face. I'm like, go ahead and fill me. That's fine. This is who I am. But I can't believe you guys are threatening to revoke Press. Credentials. Then I also saw so this wasn't just with independent media that they were doing this. I saw him threaten a guy that even had a US Secret Service press credential on. So that had to be somebody that's probably part of part of the White House Correspondents group right threatened to take his credentials away. They walked up to the guy who is a staff writer at New York Post and actually ripped them off, off of his neck, they fell to the ground. So this was really problematic. I did Tim Ahern did do this impromptu press gaggle Tuesday night after all of the arrests and this was happening, I filmed some of it. I asked him point blank why his officers were threatening to revoke press credentials, that that was an infringement on First Amendment protections federal and his response was that these press members weren't obeying police commands. And I said, but that's not a response Tom, because what if your police officers commands are not constitutional. Press has a right to stay after unlawful detainment has been called so that we can do our jobs, and you're basically telling or threatening press members for not being able to do their jobs, and that's a problematic thing. The other thing I wanted to point out about that is when this happens, you've now deterred the ability for a lot of these journalists to file their, you know, photos, videos and whatnot, if they are if they've been arrested or detained. So this is also problematic for that reason. So the other thing is, let's see have my notes here. All right, so press was not, I think this is important to you. Press was not blocking the operations of the police. So in the past, whenever I've seen, you know, I'm 53, years old, I've been doing this a long time. I have never heard, ever any police officer anywhere, anywhere in 20 plus years threatened to revoke press credentials. This is crazy to me, so let me just say that. But none of them were blocking the operations. Most press members were just trying to get a good shot. It was tough. Obviously, you had bicycle cops that were on both sides. At one point. You've heard the part about being placed on the sidewalk in various press kettles. That was definitely happening. So it for that reason, people were looking for perches where they could maybe be out of police operations, but still get a good shot. The police were very angry about that, so they were, you know, like with my answers, going around and ripping press out of, you know, planters, medians and whatnot. So that was happening, I think, you know, part of a solution to this too. And I don't know if this is just a local Chicago thing, obviously, I'm from Los Angeles, here in California, we do have a law that was signed into law last year that basically says the that police cannot force press members to leave after an unlawful assembly has been called, that they can't arrest them, they can't assault them. So, I mean, it might be helpful. I'm just thinking for other states to maybe look at our legislation and, you know, perhaps do something similar. We also have in California, non law enforcement agencies that do credentialing, like the LA Press Club. We have somebody on our board, Adam Rose. I'm going to give a shout out to Adam. He's been fantastic. But he runs relationships with law enforcement for press members quite a bit. And you know, part of that is because the Press Club has members that have been vetted. They are absolutely working members of the media. The law enforcement here would view that credential as an equivalency of having any sort of law enforcement credential. But I don't think, I think the power of credentialing should not lie in any way with law enforcement only because of the things that we've seen this past week. Another thing that I saw that has been slightly mentioned, I think, by Ford, but I wanted to get into a little bit more, was the very last night. There was a situation where there was a guy out in the street with a big flag, and there were some press members that were against where the skirmish line was filming this guy waving the flag around, and another group, a small group of protesters, came from behind and wanted to push through the police line to March. So what happened was, after that happened, a think it was a lieutenant. I'm pretty sure it was a lieutenant. He was wearing a white shirt. He came out on a bullhorn. And literally, this is, like, shocking to me too, literally issues and a lawful assembly thing directed solely at the media. He literally said into the bullhorn, media, you need to disperse. Now, if you don't disperse, we're going to arrest you. I that to me, was very shocking. Why would you issue a dispersal order, you know, directed at the press covering what was happening in Union Park? Also, that is unconstitutional, so me and a couple other journalists like you can't do that. We still have a First Amendment in this country. So after a lot of pushback, another Lieutenant came out and said, No, no, we're not. Doing that. He made a joke about about this guy with the flag talking about time travel or something, but he said, you're all still here. You're all still working. We're not going to be arresting you. We understand. But needless to say, This guy had previously came out on the bullhorn and said this stuff. So I don't know. You know, it's just frustrating. I don't know how old the solutions for these things are, but I do think my recommendation would be for people to get away from law enforcement doing your credentialing.
Thanks, Tina and yeah, I saw a video of the interaction you were talking about. Actually, I think there were two separate instances where Ahern gave dispersal orders that specifically called out press. You're talking about the one on Thursday. He did the same thing on Monday. I believe I was there for that one.
Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't see the Monday one. Okay, wild. So, yeah, this on on, this is the last night that I saw this. It was a lieutenant of some sort. I don't know his name, but I was just shocked that he said that, that's crazy, right?
And then, yeah, I think it was John Hein, the Chief of Patrol, I think who sort of de escalated the situation, as you described, and I found it alarming that he had to kind of step in and override the person who was in charge of right? But that's, that's, that's another, another stories. Thanks so much for for your comments. Yep, we've got, we can circle back to Kevin gustola, but I was asked to add Josh pashiko, who was one of the arrested journalists, I believe, as a, as a speaker here, Josh, I've invited you to speak, but I see you haven't accepted that yet. So if you, if you want to request to speak, I'm happy to to give you a minute, a few minutes, to do so just, just, just put in a speaker request and I'll, I'll grant it. I see we've got a few other speaker requests from people who, it appears are our journalists? I don't know if there are journalists who were, who were there at the DNC after Kevin and possibly Josh talk and after, we get reactions from Stephanie, happy to happy to hear from you all as well. And if you turn out not to be journalists and to be crypto scammers or something, I were to mute you. Nice to have. Okay, so Kevin, go ahead.
Well, thank you Seth for putting this together, and I just want to give credit if it isn't already obvious that the indie journalists here were responsible for a lot of people around the world actually knowing what was going on all 24 hours of the day. And I really was in debt to all of you in following and trying to do the job that I like to do, which is to see when police are infringing upon the threats to the press as well as the rights of demonstrators. And since you all talked about your experiences, I just wanted to share my reaction to the CPD chief Snelling and his comments, where he was defending the arrests of these journalists and basically saying, and this is particular to the Tuesday night outside the Israeli consulate that they had called A mass arrest and then they needed the reporters to step aside. Snelling insisted that the press were obstructing police, that the reporters had made it harder for all of the officers to take the people into custody. And as you have all been describing, this feeling of being overwhelmed by the swarm of the press. And he said there were so many journalists around that it created a problem for us moving in. But as these journalists captured while the situation was unfolding, at first, you had police move very aggressively in, and I saw some yanking and basically confiscating of protest signs that were there in the hands of these demonstrators, and it looked like then that could have been where they would have diffused it and not allowed people to assemble any longer. But they did pull back and then they allowed people to demonstrate. I think, to me, as an observer, that's where I would have been confused, because they believed that this group had violent intent, and they weren't willing to protect their right to assemble and or give them that right, grant them that right, and yet they took over an hour even longer before they actually made arrests. So if you're pressed there trying to figure out what to do, you know you're trying. You're trying to figure out, Is this a demonstration that is going to be acceptable to the police, or are they going to take some kind of dramatic action to remove all of these people? And I really do think. That as much as Snelling applauded the leadership, they weren't very clear about what they were doing, and they also heard Snelling say that they needed that press need to keep a reactionary gap of two arms length from police. I don't know how that's possible, given what was going on outside the Israeli consulate, because you have this line aggressively moving in, and as they move in, there's really nowhere for any reporters to go. And as they are trying to overwhelm this group, you know it's impossible for you to segregate yourself. And I appreciate the point that was being made about how they were separating demonstrators from the press, because something that stood out to me was this emphasis on permitted marches versus unpermitted actions. And having followed these national security events, these as they call them, national special security events, I've never really seen it the way that the Chicago Police approached this, because in the past, permitted marches probably would be a better it'd be more safe for press. There's been some kind of liaising between the organizers and the police. There's an understanding about what is going to be done. There's less guessing going on by CPD leadership. But on the other hand, this convention was in Chicago for four days, and there's nothing else going on besides it. All of these police are there for the purposes of showing off their overwhelming force. So this idea that the action on Tuesday, or any action for that matter. I mean, I know there's, there was conversation on Thursday about how the permit had elapsed at eight o'clock on Thursday. So now it's an unpermitted action, and the police seem to be bothered by that. But it shouldn't make a difference, because this is a national special security event, where my experience had been that police would facilitate First Amendment activities regardless of whether there were permits or not, simply because it would be better than having chaos and mayhem during The convention. And lastly, I just want to say that one of the things that was really clear is how unsafe the police made the areas and how quickly they could escalate and make the environment unsafe for journalists and I'll I'll be honest, I made a choice not to be there on Tuesday night because I didn't trust the CPD not to escalate it into a riot, and and, and they did exactly what I expected. And part of the reason I knew that they would do this is because the city of Chicago's Office of Inspector General wrote in a May 2024 report that the CPD training materials rely on outdated and inaccurate psychological theories to instruct members that crowds will negatively affect individual participants encouraging violent behavior, and that they have used tactics crowd control tactics, indiscriminately, without distinguishing between peaceful demonstrators and individuals conducting criminal acts. So the last thing I'll say is on Monday, when there was this massive demonstration, the largest demonstration of the week, this group that held that protest, though they only had 100 people, they were out in the park on Monday, firing everyone. They probably gave out 500 to 1000 different flyers to people to come to the consulate. There was a huge potential for a large crowd. They didn't have that kind of turnout, but let's just say there were probably some demonstrators that weren't the the people that you could claim had violent intent, and I actually don't concede that there were necessarily violent intentions, but my point being that there were peaceful demonstrators that were there that wanted to demonstrate outside the Israeli consulate for obvious reasons, and the police made that impossible. And in the process of making it impossible, it was very clear, made it almost impossible for any journalists to capture and follow along what was going on without there being some risk to their safety.
Thanks. Kevin. At this point, I want to turn it over to Stephanie sugars from the US press freedom tracker, which, in the interest of full disclosure, is a project of the freedom of the press Foundation, to just give reaction to what you're hearing in the context of all the other Press. Freedom violations you cover, many of which also arise at large scale protests. Yes,
absolutely. Thank you for hosting this space. Talia for suggesting it. And it's lovely to have everyone gathered in one space, because I do talk to some of you far, far too often.
There are
a few things that really stood out about these protests and the police response as compared to, or rather in the context of the protests that we've been seeing nationally, especially around, yes, the election, but more so the Israel Gaza war. And so while the response here was not as egregious as we saw in 2020 across the country and in Chicago and I, I sincerely hope that nothing ever reaches that magnitude again, but it was still as someone mentioned this overwhelming response by meaningful intention to have it be that way with a few journals having described it at times as having police lines that were three or four officers thick, this massive turnout to control what oftentimes were not particularly violent crowds and often were majority press. So to see that scale is particularly striking to me, because in New York, where there have been significant ongoing demonstrations, the police response has been similarly enormous and similarly willing to engage in these sort of repressive tactics, be it criminalizing things like being on the street at all, using megaphones, etc, here in Chicago, seeing These hard barriers to try and force and direct path of the protest, and also enforce a barrier between the press and the protesters, limiting their ability to actually engage in that sort of meaningful coverage and discourse in the way that they might otherwise want to checking my notes as well. I know a few people have mentioned just the number of journalists who were present, but with the training that the Chicago PD was doing and in the knowledge of the political sphere that we exist in, it should not have come as a surprise that there would be the number of journalists present that there was that is something that they could have and should have, easily accounted for and created a more coherent plan for the consistent issues every day of the protest with conflicting orders, where you would be directed onto the sidewalk. Oh, no, you can't be on the sidewalk. Get in the street, oh, not on this side of the street. Go that direction. Yes, you have to disperse as a member of the media and be outside of this kettle, or we're not going to call it a kettle, because that's illegal. But we're not going to tell you where you can actually exit, and even once exiting, a journalist that I spoke to mentioned that it was sort of this shrug. I don't know you look like media. I guess they didn't seem to be trained in recognizing what was a valid credential or not, or were just operating this very haphazard manner that absolutely contributed to the chaos that everyone experienced. And just to I guess, close with something to echo something that Tina mentioned, is the credentialing process being the sole responsibility of the CPD is is likely not an effective means for ensuring that there isn't this impulse to say, Okay, well, they're not complying with the orders that I'm giving in this moment in the heat of this chaos, and so I'm Going to revoke their credentials with any sort of justifiable reason or review process that the journalists by law are entitled to. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna close with that and let other people weigh in with any last comments they may have.
Stephanie, just one quick question for you, it seems like there was far less of a press freedom problem at the RNC a few weeks ago with the Milwaukee Police. Is that because there wasn't the same scale of protests, or what do you or were the cops there doing a better job? What do you? What do you think was the difference?
And my sense of it is it was a scale of protests. Distinction we just did not see the number of demonstrators gathering in the streets around Milwaukee. Also worth noting that that was a week after the assassin not even a full week after the assassination attempt, and so they were extremely prepared, in a way where I don't think it's that they were unprepared, but I think if I were going to be going on the ground in those circumstances and considering protesting, I would assume a hairline trigger, basically, excuse my missing idioms, but that the response to any perceived aggression at demonstrations at the RNC would have been met, I would assume, or I would fear, with a level of indiscriminate violence that I think is, in and of itself, a bit of a deterrence, and to give the CPD just a modicum of credit, after Tuesday's chaos, we did see a significant reduction. We didn't have any other journalists arrested. There did not appear to be any more corralling or kettling of journalists outside of the unfortunately standard threats of arrest and orders to disperse and things of that measure, which, of course, are also unacceptable, but they did seem at least somewhat responsive To the criticism that came out after Tuesday. But also just a last plug for me and the tracker is for all the journalists who are present. I know that I've spoken to you all a lot. But also, if you have any videos, if you have any experiences that you felt like were an assault. Sean mentioned being shoved a few times, being pushed with batons, etc, if you felt like they rose to an assault, I do desperately want to hear about it, because that is how I actually have a better sense of well, how egregious was the ctds behavior. So please do reach out directly to me through the trackers tips portal and tell us the truth of what what happened on the ground.
Thanks, Stephanie, I see Josh at some point. Did accept the speaker invite. So Josh, if you're still here and want to talk about what you experienced, I want to, you know, give you the floor first before anyone else.
Okay, Josh, yeah, if anyone wants to let Josh know that he is welcome to join us whenever he can and talk about his experience. Appreciate it. We've got a few requests to speak from other journalists. I am going to grant those requests now we've got Brian Karam Olya Fedorova, I somebody from crisis ready media, and I don't know the real name of spider monkey, but Stephanie tells me that you are a journalist, so I'm going to let you all in. Maybe I'll just go in order. Brian, do you want to talk first? If you're still there, I
Brian, you were just added to speaker. If you still want to talk, go ahead. Okay, let's move on to Olia. Then, oh, okay, hey, Brian,
someone just said, I'm here. I don't know if it was Brian or Josh or somebody else.
I'm here. I'm here. Okay,
now, I hear you, Brian.
You hear me now? Yes. Ah, great, thanks. Yeah, I look I've covered every convention since 84 I want to tell you, that's what we saw. Is not unusual. I'm a guy that's been jailed for a couple of times for First Amendment stuff, and I offer this to younger reporters, I always say, and I offered this at one of the protests, I think it was on Monday or Tuesday. I said, Look, just I waited right into the crowd. Don't ask permission. I said, Excuse me. I said, it's always better to ask forgiveness than to seek permission. Do your job and get it done. A lot of these cops don't know what's going on the. Communication is horrible between those who are leading and those who are following. And most of the time, the guys on the bikes, they just want to go home. So I try to be as nice to them, as polite as possible. You got to be willing to be arrested. Be nice, but be firm. They're concerned the cops. You got to understand is always their safety first. They they never plan adequately. I've been to a lot of these things. They're never planned adequately. What I always tell journalism groups beforehand is reach out ahead of time and say, Listen, I know you all are going to be worried about us there. We should be involved in in that planning. Sometimes they'll listen to you. Sometimes they won't. I witnessed some of the stuff that happened. I had one of the cops, you know, threatened to pull my White House press pass. You know, I'm walking around with a White House press pass. They go, you're going to take that. I go, pal, look at Donald Trump couldn't take it three times when he tried me in court. You're not going to get it. So we can talk, or we can do it easier. We can do it hard. Doesn't matter to me. I don't care. So then they get a little bit more sometimes that will disarm them. Sometimes it's just look, I know you're just doing your job. I'm just doing mine. How do we work together? Sometimes that works, but most of the time, what they are more reactive than proactive, and sometimes so are we. And that's my only criticism of us. You're there to do your job and then threatening to take away your press pass is just silly. And most of the time, I don't know who the speaker was most, but they're right. Most of the time, these people can't take your press passes, and if they want to arrest you, then, you know, fine, throw me in the I'm like, brah rabbit. Throw me in that Briar Patch. That's where I was born. But never get rude or combative with them, because that that only plays against you. You've got to maintain that sense of decorum, which is really hard when they're being assholes to you. I'll admit it, and I don't always, I won't always do that myself, but if you reach out ahead of time, I just think that a lot of this can be diffused the police department, if you want to be honest about it, I've covered far worse police departments than the Chicago Police Department and how they reacted to US, the bike cops were, by and large, very, very kind. They were very receptive to whatever I had to say. Some of the people in charge that I didn't know who that little guy was that was going through acting like an asshole, but you all have named him here. The only thing he said to me was, move out of the way. I said, I'll move when you move. And he looked at me. I got just standing here pal, and he moved on. I don't, I don't know it's because I'm old, fat and ugly, or if he's just an idiot, but maybe it's a combination of both. So I just, I appreciate everything that everyone did there. I'm just hoping that, you know, to provide a little bit of, you know, after all these years of covering it, this is what I notice, is that the beat cops are the ones that you can actually talk to those in charge, or the assholes, and they often do not talk well to the people that they are leading, and they certainly don't talk well with us. And that funneling of press and threatening to throw them out is just that, if you've got that on tape of them going, you know, cease and desist. The Press man, just publicize that, because at the end of the day, not only is that anti First Amendment, it's just flat out wrong, and it in a viral moment in the making.
Thanks so much, Brian. Really appreciate your insights. And yeah, that last point, that's something that we say loudly all the time, don't be afraid to write about press freedom violations and draw the spotlight to them. I know it's uncomfortable for journalists to sort of make themselves the story, and some people have editors who might say that writing about press freedom is navel gazing and insider stuff that no one cares about,
that they count on you not doing it. They want to report it. The fact of the matter is, you're not making yourself the story they did that. And so I, as an editor, I've told my reporters I want to know and as a reporter, let your editors know that the fact is that you did not do anything but your job, and you need to stand up for the First Amendment, and by God, if they take if they're the ones that are going to make you the story, don't you're not. You weren't there to do that. They did that. That's an action. If it had happened to anyone else, if you had seen a cop act that way to anyone else. You would videotape it. You would interview them. You would report it. Don't take yourself out of that mix. You're also a human being that deserves to be treated with respect Exactly.
And it's not just about you. It's newsworthy. People want to know. Look at the Berrien County record story last year. Look how much press that got. People care about this stuff. It's a constitutional. Right? Even if you're not a journalist, you depend on journalists. So it's not, it's not some insider thing that only other journalists care
about this stuff. Yeah,
when they give us grief, you know you're fake media, you're this, you're that, or you're tilted, or you're biased, you need to point out how it is difficult to bring vetted facts to it and information to an audience when you have this type of action. So I always tell every young reporter that works for me, I want to know you put it in if I take it out of your story, maybe it goes in another story. Maybe it goes into an opinion piece or an editorial. But if I don't know, I can't act if I do know I can. So you let people know. Let your editors know. Let your colleagues know. Let everyone know that, because you're not alone. I'll guarantee you, if it's happened to you, it has happened to others at the same event.
Thanks again, Brian. We've got Olya up next, and I see we've got a couple of people who have already spoken, who have hands up at this point. You know, if you have speaker access and you want to jump in, just, just, just go for it, obviously don't talk over people. But I it's, we've got a few more people who want to talk. And we've, we've, we can sort of depart from the more formal structure at this point in the space we've already been on for, for quite some time. So, oh yeah, tell us what, what you've got to say.
Hey guys. So thank you for allowing me to speak, and thanks for organizing this. So I want to clarify a few points. I applied for the CPD issued credentials way ahead of time when I was picking them up at the police department and I remarked on how large they were. I mean, it's pretty much an orange sandwich board. They said, well, we want to know your press in a vaguely threatening fashion, however, so we were promised that people with CPD credentials would be the last to be cleared of the street, in a sense that we would be allowed to remain past general dispersal orders. That was clearly not only not honored, not honored, it was kind of the opposite. I felt like having the CPD credentials was actually making it more difficult for me to report, because that was then, along with other journalists targeted by our friend Tom Ahern, I don't know his time, his name at the time, who was his entire all he ever did was constantly accost members of the press and scream at them to move from wherever they were at that moment. I mean, there was nowhere. There was not a spot you could be that was agreeable to Tom Ahern and after I was arrested, I kept asking for DCPI, and then I didn't realize that it was DCPI who had me arrested, right? It was Tom Ahern, which is outrageous. I mean, I've never heard of that before the CPI actually ordering arrest of journalists. And it's, it's remarkable to what extent it seems completely arbitrary and up to, I mean, really, Tom Ahern to have people arrested, there were no general rules. A lot of the a lot of the just cops on the ground didn't seem to know what didn't didn't know what the CPI was, and told me it didn't exist. And when Tom Aaron ordered my arrest, it seemed that he was just personally frustrated by the fact that press is present, and I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, and then, well, nine hours in the slammer. Thank you very much. Anyway, that's what happened. I
thanks. I'm glad you were able to join us. And yeah, the nine hours in the slammer, there was a lot of press in Chicago prior to the convention about these procedures that had been set up to ensure that people can be basically issued citations and quickly released, either on the scene or at this police station. They called area three that was set up as sort of a makeshift holding facility, the objective being to not have to process people. And as Mickey from the national press Photographers Association pointed out the other day, all of that was seemingly an abysmal failure. Journalists were not site. On the scene they were detained, and they were detained for a really long time that not only took them out of the picture the day they were detained, but or the night they were detained, but probably left them pretty damn exhausted the next day when there was more news to cover. So yeah, that was Mickey's phrase, and abysmal failure, and he got it right there. I see that someone from jinx press is here now, and I'm going to skip to them because they were on our original speakers list and weren't going to be able to make it. I don't know if that's Raven or someone else from jinx press, but if you're here, feel free to chime in.
It's Raven. I just want to clarify, did you share my comments earlier that I emailed because I don't want to repeat myself. If you
did, no, I didn't honestly. I didn't feel comfortable putting my own words. I thought you should speak.
I If you want me to speak, I can, you know,
yeah, go for it. All right, I'll just
go into this. I'll be honest, guys, I'm really fucking tired. Sorry for swearing, but it's been a really long few weeks. You know, this, this convention is not limited to just a few days for me or the other journalists who live here and parachute journalism is a thing, and I respect immensely everyone in this space right now, and I think everybody did amazing work, but at the end of the day, you guys get to go home, and we still have to deal with these police. And on a regular basis, I'm not really hassled by Ahern too much. I mean, every once in a while he'll tell me to get out of the way, but generally, we have kind of like a mutual sort of understanding of where people can can be. And I think as journalists, we have a very big responsibility to the communities we cover not to raise the temperature and not to agitate, because when that police violence comes down, it's going to come down on people who have less resources than us and are more marginalized than us and more vulnerable than us, and these police are now amped up after everything that happened, right? So when I see young reporters, new reporters, green reporters, with all the best intent in the world rolling up in body armor and bulletproof vests and goggles and respirators to a protest where not a single non lethal has been dispersed, where nobody is going to be shot by live rounds. It makes me frustrated, because we tried to give this advice ahead of time to people, and we told them to expect kettling, and we told them to expect bikes. We told them to expect beatings and batons. And I think whoever spoke, I forget his name, I'm not seeing it light up, but the man who spoke about sort of being nice to the police or engaging with them in a way that's like, you know, full of decorum, it's not about, from my perspective, being nice to them. It's about whether or not I'm able to do my job right, and I can't do my job if I'm removed from the scene or if I'm getting into a fight with the police captain. So as much as it is hard for me at times, I have to contain myself and think, Okay, what are the consequences of my behavior in this situation? And I've been kettled by CPD over and over again over the years, I've been detained, I've been searched, I've been thrown in the back of a van and driven away for hours and hours and let out in the middle of the night in a district that is unsafe with no CTA operating and no way to get home. So I know what these cops are capable of. And I tried to warn people, and a lot of people didn't want to listen, because they're not from Chicago, and they think they know how things go, because they report in New York and they report in LA. So that said, I think everybody did an amazing job. CPD was being CPD, right? Like we knew this was going to happen. They're going to hassle everybody, anybody that they can, whether you have creds or not, your creds are not a magic pass in the streets. You have to think a few steps ahead of kind of like, what you can accomplish with or without the creds, right? And I don't even have, I had none of the credits that anybody else has because I have been denied credentials from CPD because of our reporting, because it is like abolitionist reporting, right? So, you know, that's, that's basically all I have to say, is kind of like, you know, the press also needs to take responsibility for the press that doesn't excuse anybody getting arrested, that doesn't excuse police violence. Like Tom Ahern was on some shit, like, there's still, like, none of that is excused. And I want to be clear about that, but I also just think it's important for newer reporters to hear this stuff, because I think sometimes it can sound like a lecture coming from like the old heads or the legacy pubs like, Oh, don't take out your riot gear, kids until you see the non lethal stuff like that. But it's that advice is good for a reason. The police are a military. They consider themselves at war with these protesters. So if you are putting yourself in between them, you're putting yourself like, right in the crossfire, and you have to think about like, what that really. Means, right? Like, they don't care who you are. They don't care that you're a journalist, they don't care if you're a protester. All they care about is their line of sight, and if you are in the way of it, you're going to get your shit rocked. So I hope people come back to Chicago to report, I hope they're prepared for the kettling and the bikes, because it's what we deal with all the time. And yeah, I think that's it.
Thanks, Raven. Really appreciate your joining, and that is a great and you know, different perspective than we've been hearing, thanks for joining it. And you know what I'm hearing is, you've kind of got these three factions. Maybe there are more factions, but you've got local independent journalists, you've got out of town independent journalists, and then you've got legacy journalists or mainstream journalists. And it seems to me like, well, everyone should be listening to the local independent journalists, because they're the ones who know how things work around here. You know, our cops have their own problems, but they're not the same problems that New York cops and La cops have. And you know, it's wise to listen to those who understand the local dynamics. And as far as the mainstream journalists, I mean, they by being recognizable and by being having been around for for a while, and and being a bit older, generally, they can probably get away with stuff that independent journalists can't. And to the extent that they can help into independent journalists benefit from their ability to navigate the situation just based on their names and reputations, to the extent that they can, you know, back up and vouch for independent journalists and de escalate things. I feel like that's a responsibility that more mainstream and legacy and well known journalists should be, should be willing to take on. So anyway, just my my two cents before we move on to the next person I see, Talia and Sean have hands up. Do either of you all talk before I move on to someone else?
Yeah,
I just briefly wanted to note that CPD
broke Olga's Talia beat me to it. So Talia superior dog,
Olga. CPD broke Olga's lens and the motor inside her camera. They dropped her gear on the ground. As they were removing her items off of her they just dropped it straight on the concrete. And I don't know if Olga wants to talk about that, but they did the same thing with Josh pacheco's gear, and it was just like this. You know, it's the whole like you have to be nice to cops. Is like they're not nice to us. We have to be, you know, to the extent to be able to do our jobs, not huge dickheads, and to the extent that we're not going to end up causing problems for the local press, who then have to deal with those cops who now have this renewed sense of impunity, but they're still going to be huge dicks and damage really expensive gear, like they did with Olga's.
Yeah, point taken Talia and I guess, like as a as a Chicago in one thing I would say there is, you know, like our cops are mostly assholes, just like cops anywhere else, but even the assholes in the Midwest are still Midwesterners to some extent, and they do respond to a little bit of courtesy differently than cops in New York do, just having lived in both places, like there are those cultural difference but yeah, point taken, if somebody's throwing your stuff on the ground, you're not going to say please and thank you to them. So it's, it's, it's, you know, a difficult needle to thread, and I think that you threaded different ways in different cities. And you know, that goes back to the points that that Raven was was making there. Um, anyhow, um, let's see who we've got. We've got, uh, spider monkeys on the speaker list. Let me add you, if you are still there and have something to say, go for it. Oh, it says there was an error adding you as a guest, so maybe you're not here anymore. I don't know. I'm not going to be able to figure that out right now. Crisis ready media, let me add you all.
Oops.
Okay, whoever is here from crisis, ready media, you've now been added as a speaker. Oh, there was an error with you, too. So maybe you're not here anymore. There are a few other people here who I have no idea if you're
real quick before you find other people. Sean had raised his hand as well, oh, Sean, go ahead.
I did want to talk a little bit about sort of the mindset of the Chicago Police Department. You know I, I am someone who regularly visits Chicago, but not someone who regularly works in Chicago. I. So, you know, one of the more troubling things that I saw that I think goes a long way to explain why perhaps some members of the media were treated, perhaps a little bit less better than less well than others, at least once during the weekend. You know, I caught police officers talking to themselves and saying basically things along the lines of, well, you know, some people just print their own press credentials to be clear. You know, the police department is not the arbiter of the media. The entire point of the Fourth Estate is that it is not beholden to the other three members of government. It is really concerning, and it goes a long way towards showing that, you know, CPD really does need to learn that people who are there to do a job are there to do a job, you know. And at least once, I saw a counter protester on Tuesday, you know, yell some things. This is an active participant in the protests. He was allowed to say some things towards the protesters, and then ran into the press area. Nothing was done there. So this idea of, well, you know, we have to maintain the press area as only for the press. Obviously, that was at least not true on one occasion. Other times, you know, one of the more absurd things was, you know, I keep hearing, you know, comments like, you know you have to be nice and you know, they're just there to do a job too. The lack of basic planning was pretty striking. I mean, I know Mel was also here for this moment, and I think it was Wednesday, where, excuse me, that was Thursday where, you know, the bicycle police had to get to an area and essentially cordoned the sidewalk, and there was this, like almost Looney Tunes gag, where it was a comical amount of bicycle police officers just filed one after another. It felt like waiting for a train. I think I was. I had to stay still for like 10 minutes, just while hundreds of bike cops just kind of kept going. It's a common problem in every city you know, where police departments maybe don't know how to move with the media. And you know, what I always say is the best thing you can do with the media is just leave us alone to do our jobs. You know, if you pretend we don't exist, we will, for the most part, sort of fall in line as much as you want, but if you make it difficult for us, we got to get our shots. You know, if I don't license footage, my cat, who you just heard, saying, Hello, she doesn't eat, um, and I want my cat to be full and happy. So, uh, that's all I gotta say about that. I think,
thanks, John, um, yeah. And I I want the same for your cat as well. Um, Mel, it looks like you've got your hand up still here,
Sure am. Yeah, I really appreciate a lot of what's been said in this space. I'm so glad that we had the chance to kind of have this conversation and to sort of bring in these differing perspectives. And I understand that often, when these sort of national events happen, it can really suck to have to deal with the aftermath of that. And I would just say again that in these sort of instances, the press may be sort of, you know, these gaggles may be kind of running wild, and if you kind of view it that way, but at the same time, the onus is on the police officers who are presenting this image of keeping a street safe or crowd control or whatever their image they want to present. It's on them to to act appropriately as well. And I think by and large, the press holds themselves to whether you're independent or you're a blogger or you know, you work with a major outlet, we hold ourselves to a professional standard, and we want to keep ourselves safe and and I think that's apparent. No matter what major story is happening in my five plus years of covering movements in both in the Midwest now in the West, close, going to be moving to Chicago soon, you know, coming back to the Midwest and covering protests in both Midwestern cities and in LA What I've discovered is that, by and large, these situations become tense and escalated and, you know, dangerous because police officers don't operate with the same level of professionalism and decorum. And that, I think, is a really important point to make. And I would hope that if we are trying to, you know, if the if the goal is to continue to cover these events, and to do so in a way that is safe, that allows folks to do their jobs, and if there are members of press freedom, or, you know, the NPPA, who are trying to hold these sort of trainings with police departments around the country that that is a point that we bring up consistently, is that these situations often are made worse by these heavy handed, overwhelming, confusing tactics and tactics and directives that police departments across the country seem to be really focused on upholding, I guess, and that if the issue is that these departments are emboldened after such An event happens, and they are acting with more impunity, then we need to be paying attention to that, and we need to be having more conversations about why they feel they can do so, and what can we do to sort of restrain that from a First Amendment or from really any just basic common decency in terms of how these communities are policed, so that that's kind of my final thoughts. I'm really glad that we had this conversation, and I look forward to hearing any other perspectives before we close out. So thank you. Applause.
