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All right, let's go ahead and people will join as we go. And the recording, of course, will be available on X afterwards for for some time. So anyone who who doesn't catch it now still has, still has options. So thanks everyone for joining us today to discuss press freedom at the DNC, both in the convention hall and on the streets. I'm Seth Stern. I'm the advocacy director here at Freedom of the Press foundation for anyone who doesn't know us and couldn't guess from our name, we're a nonprofit committed to defending and protecting press freedom. We do that in a number of ways, from policy advocacy to digital security training for journalists to tools like securedrop and danger zone that help journalists and their sources share information, to documenting press freedom violations through the US press freedom tracker database. You can check out our work at Freedom dot press or NX or any other social media platform, pretty much. And today, we've got with us, Katherine Jacobson, who is the US and Canada program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, another nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the rights of journalists to report news safely and without fear of reprisal. Catherine was inside the DNC last week, so she'll tell us a bit about her experiences there, and Catherine's got a hard stop at one Eastern. So I'll probably ask her questions first, and then get to our other guest, Mickey. And Mickey, I meant to look up YouTube videos to see how you pronounce your last name, but I totally forgot. Is it oosterhic? Sure, that's purpose enough. Okay, General Counsel at the National Press Photographers Association, which is an organization that fights for working news photographers, videographers and multimedia journalists, and also defends press freedom in all of its forms. And Mickey worked closely with lawyers on the ground to free journalists who were arrested during the protests outside the DNC. So while Katherine is going to talk about what happened inside, Mickey's going to talk about what happened outside. So I will get started with a question to Katherine. Katherine, could you tell us in general terms about your experience at the convention as a press freedom advocate, and assuming you hadn't been to past dncs. How did it align with your expectations going in?
Yeah, hi, Seth, thanks so much for having me be part of this conversation. So this is the first time that I've ever been to a political convention of this size in the United States. So I wasn't really sure what to expect, but what really struck me was kind of the massive scale of the operation you would pick up accreditation, like for media credentialing over in one part of town at the McCormick Center, which was like 20 minutes a drive away from the United Center, where the evening programming that we all saw on TV was taking place. And just what really struck me once I got into the United Center after I was able to pick up my accreditation, or just the layers of security everywhere. Like, I think it felt like I don't have the actual numbers, but it kind of felt like people were outnumbered two to one by police, right? There were just layers of security to go in and and. Busses of law enforcement, by the conventions, by the United Center. You know, there just in case something, something happened. And when I first entered the grounds on Monday, it was around, I think, 3pm or so, maybe 330 and you could still kind of hear the roar of the crowd, the protesters, pro Palestinian protesters outside of the gates, which was, you know, just kind of a jarring contrast, I think, from what was going on inside with a very scripted programming and everything like that, to, you know, the very obvious protesting that was happening outside of the gates. So
that's actually interesting, because at the protests, I heard from several demonstrators that they were concerned that they were too far from the United Center for anyone on the inside to have heard them. The protest, at least the Monday one was routed towards, strangely enough, this playground area, which, yeah, you can see the exterior facade of the United Center. But honestly, I'm kind of surprised that they could be heard from outside. So that's that's interesting. You were talking about the lines to get in, and a lot was made of that. As far as journalists having to wait outside and there sort of being a state of chaos, did that interfere with coverage at all. As far as you could tell.
It's hard to say, because I think it was, it very much depended on the crew and what time of day they were going in. So when I first entered on Monday, I actually didn't have any issues. I was really concerned about all the stuff that I'd been seeing about the long lines getting in, so I made sure to get there kind of a an off time, I think. And it was fine. The success of three nights or three afternoons, I guess it was total chaos. To be frank, the media entrance the last several days was a bit better than the regular entrance. But the regular entrance was, I mean, I think I waited in line for an hour and 30 minutes one day. So it was chaotic.
Catherine, it's Mickey. Can I ask? Having been to quite a number of the conventions, how many of the magnetometer and X ray machines do they have?
I think they had four or five at each of the entrances. Okay, yeah, the first day, they were a lot more thorough than they were the the the last several days they, like, actually, like, went through my bag and, like, shook my water bottle and stuff like that, which was empty because you had to leave water bottles. Are there anything in them?
But, yeah, okay. It seems that there were, as I recall, more at the other convention. So I'm just surprised, since it seemed, at least from what I was reading, they were using them from the TSA. They borrowed those. They looked like airport ones, I assume for you, yeah,
exactly what you had in previous years. They had,
they had more than that. And I can never remember anything more than literally a minute or two to pass through everything and and they were thorough. I mean, I'm trying to remember in a couple places they like almost did a perfunctory look through bags on the way. There were a couple of stops on the way. It was kind of a labyrinth to pass through to actually get to the actual machines. And I know that was an issue in the past for us, because they restricted backpacks to a certain size and different things, gas masks. And, you know, obviously for people like you who are inside and outside, and journalists who were trying to be everywhere, you know, it was hard for them to maybe leave some of the things. So I know we got clearance and other conventions for backpacks bigger, and they identified those with special press tags. But, you know, obviously every city is different, yeah?
Well, they also had, like, a really thorough list, I know they had this at the RNC as well, of things that you couldn't bring in. So I assume that they did that in past years, and we're just very, kind of harsh with with enforcing that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Catherine, one other thing that got some attention, other than the difficulty for journalists to get in, was the the cost of covering the convention from inside. There was a report by WBEZ, which is our public radio station here in Chicago, that the the cost of journalists, of getting, you know, some space to work and an internet connection at the DNC was exponentially higher than it was at the RNC in Milwaukee a few weeks ago. Did you have any thoughts on that? Or. Any other contrasts with how press was handled at the RNC based on what you heard?
Yeah. So, I mean, I think, as you said, I didn't attend the RNC. I wasn't able to, but for personal reasons, not because of any issues with with with getting accreditation or anything like that, but, but yeah. I mean, it's really unfortunate that the cost was so high because it does make it so much more difficult for local news outlets to be able to cover something that is, you know, of national, international importance that's happening in their own community. So that was disappointing to see, and I especially because of the access that was given to influencers who were there, which really kind of struck me to see, you know, these people wandering around, the influencers wandering around with with really great access, and kind of, you know, perks of being at a convention that I don't think journals necessarily had. You know, we're all packed in to the press section like sardines most nights. And influencers had a lot more, you know, had nicer facilities, I think, to kind of experience the events in, you know, and is that good or bad? It's not great for media access. But I also think it kind of points to a shifting understanding of where people are getting their news, and especially younger generations, right, and what what coverage looks like in that sense, good or bad? I don't know, but it's certainly frustrating to see.
So did influencers have to pay at all, or were they just basically given the right
coverage? I don't know. I've seen I don't want to spread misinformation about that, so if
I could just jump in and just to clarify with a question, see Catherine, when you got your credential, you have to pay for the credential. Did you? No, no, that's what I thought you were paying Seth for, like, space inside, like, if you have a workspace. So if you're a photographer, you're really unless you're working for a news organization and they've got space like Reuters and AP and places for their journalists to work and transmit and things like that, you're not paying for space. But the other thing is Catherine again, since I wasn't there, correct me if I'm wrong, but you got a different there was a different credential for every day of the convention, correct? No.
So, the way it worked, they're kind of different scales, media credentials, but credentialing, but once you and there were different ones for different days, but I did not have those, it's they had ones for, like, you know, different colors of whether what you could access. I mean, so some media has
that's, I'm sorry, that was the second part of it, but at least in all the past ones that I've been to every day to at least get into that perimeter, you had a different pass. So, so, God forbid, you know, somebody lost one or it was stolen that didn't give them access for all the days of the convention, and only gave them access that day and then getting into the convention, that's about all you got. As you said, you got packed into some area. If you needed to be on a calendar platform, you had to have a different credential. You wanted to be on the floor and walk around, you had to have a different credential. And those were completely separate, and apart from the one that just got you in to the security perimeter,
exactly, yeah. And thank you for differentiating. Yeah, I think it's, it's, I know it's different for photographers and videographers versus print reporters, who we were the ones kind of squished in together like sardines. So yeah, an important distinction.
Just getting back to the influencer journalists contrast, I understand Mickey's point that the credentials themselves were free, but if I'm understanding correctly, journalists, if they say we're not with Reuters or whoever, and didn't have a workspace reserved for their outlet, would have needed to pay a significant amount of money to have a workspace and and a good internet connection. Well,
that would probably be separate. Seth, what'd you say? Said that would probably be separate. Like if you wanted a desk or a workspace that's one price. Then you want an internet connection, that's another one. A telephone, that's another price. So, right,
right, yeah, and I don't want to get, you know, I don't want to get, get into the numbers. WBEZ had a really good report. It was called, want a dedicated chair and an electrical outlet for journalists at the DNC, the price starts at 751 according to their reporting at the RNC, a similar setup would have cost $100 and then if you want, you know, a bigger space or a better internet connection, the price, the starting price at seven $51 escalates from there and. And but it sounds like not just from what Catherine's saying, but from what I've read, influencers kind of had a reserved area with prime seating, where they would not have been subject to that tiered pricing that WBEZ reported for journalists and Catherine, I get that you don't want to spread misinformation. So if you, if you're not familiar with with the details there, just passed but, but, but I'm just like trying to figure out if I'm correct in that understanding there.
Yeah, I mean, I will say I did. I personally did not see the influencers face, but from what I saw on social media, it looked more comfortable than what print reporters were getting with, kind of the general admissions into the into the arena so and
Catherine, if I could just ask again, just like you had the credential to be in, you know, the that one area that you're all packed in, and I'm assuming, and that's always dangerous, but that's what, hopefully you'll clarify, the influencers probably had the credential where they could wander around on the floor and do those interviews and do their influencing, as it were, that
is my understanding, based on what I saw on social media from said influencers. I Yeah. So,
yeah. So Seth, a real issue. You know, when journalists have the big bar and steal to get onto the floor to, you know, get to, let's say, their state and their local representatives to get an interview or to do something there, because they can't do it from up in the, you know, The peanut gallery, as it were, and and yet, influencers, who are not journalists, they get to just have the run of the place that that's, that's, that's a new wrinkle that was certainly not there in in 2016 Since 2020 doesn't really count.
Yeah, yeah. Understood. Thanks for Thanks for all of those details. Mickey, and it is unfortunate, as we've said before, that a party that proclaims itself to be a friend of press freedom and that sort of you know, contrast itself with Republicans and with Trump's enemy of the people, talk and media bashing nonetheless, is, you know, I see it as price gouging. I can't really imagine that there's any correlation between the actual expense of giving a journalist a chair and and an internet connection and the cost that they're charging. So,
you know, I don't know that. I'm not, you know, it's not the party. You have to remember, you go to one of those convention centers, McCormick, I don't know, you know if you've ever covered any other things besides this, but you literally go to a, you know, let's say, after the election, at a hotel where they're going to have people that are going to be there the governor is going to speak whoever wins. You know, both the how the Republicans and the Democrats will usually have, you know, their headquarters at a hotel. Those hotels charge exorbitant prices for just, you know, electric drops. So I don't know if it's just, you know, I don't know that we can blame the DNC and the RNC. I think it's, it's just a matter of what the the venues that they're at are charging as well, right?
And the location difference of Milwaukee and Chicago, I think makes right, perhaps would contribute to the price differential. Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, I understood. And that's a fair point Nikki, and I hope that if the DNC really had nothing to do with that sort of decision making. And if the DNC is not benefiting from the exorbitant prices being charged that they would publicly clarify as much and sort of do something to alleviate the the understanding that that they were, I haven't heard any comment from organizers on that, but I hope you're right, Mickey, I hope this was just a decision by the United Center, and that they're, you know, not that I hope that they get rich off of this, but that they, and not the DNC, are the ones pocketing the money. Because I do think it's a bad look if the DNC was involved in that but appreciate the clarifications. Catherine, before you've got to go, I have one more question for you, just sort of changing topics, the Harris campaign has and vice president Harris specifically have gotten some criticism for media availability, generally, for not taking questions from the press, for not sitting down for one on one interviews, although VP Harris has said that she's going to do that soon. What was your impression, if any, from being at the convention in terms of the direction the campaign's going to take when it comes to media available going forward? Yeah,
I think it's kind of hard to say from a convention. Um. What the what direction they're going to take, just because conventions, at least my understanding. And Mickey, please jump in here, since you've been to so many but like, it's kind of controlled chaos, right? They're just trying to make sure that everything runs smoothly. And, you know, is it great that media access does not seem to be kind of the first priority in that No, not necessarily. Would we like to see it differently? Yes, of course. But I also think kind of being realistic about what is going on during that week or four days. I guess I can understand the argument for you know, not having a long sit down interview with journalists at this stage. However, I really hope that changes soon, and I think it would have been useful to have had more, I guess, mentions, or at least we would have liked to have seen more mentions of freedom of the press and the important role that journalists play in American democracy than what we saw. It was really great that in Harris's speech on Thursday, she did mention, you know, that Trump has explicitly said that he intends to jail journalists. But you know that was those were a few seconds, and it would have been nicer to kind of have that fleshed out more by by someone her especially. But you know anyone really about, you know, the attacks on the press that we have seen coming from from one side of the political spectrum and, you know, and and an affirmation that the Democrats, you know, plan to support press freedom domestically and abroad. But yeah, maybe that's pie in the sky.
I totally agree with Catherine. It's really just kind of not even organized chaos, but sometimes disorganized. I mean, a perfect example is the current president of the United States who was to speak ended up, you know, by either the fact that everybody preceding him went longer, and there's lots of applause. Or, as some people wonder, by design to keep him out of prime time, he went on the air a whole lot later than he was scheduled to do. And you can see, you know, something as important as that was almost beyond their control. Or, as some people who like conspiracy theories. Think that that was on purpose, but in either case, yeah, it's very difficult to, I think, judge what the next administration is going to look like. And you know, we've had a very harsh glimpse of that in in in Trump's administration and and the threats and the you know, the fake news and and all of the things that you see in you know, past totalitarian countries. So to vilify the press in that way, as you know, par for the course. I'm, quite frankly, troubled by the fact that the press keeps having this, you know, this balance that when I think you're dealing with somebody like Donald Trump having trying to do that balance is, is what got him elected the last time, and I have a feeling they're going down that same path.
Excuse me, if I can just add one thing to that, access doesn't necessarily equate to quality discussion, and I think it's really important to underscore because I've seen this come out from some people on the right, excuse me, that you know, well, Trump makes himself available in all of these different scenarios, and the Democrats don't do that. And I would, I would ask also like, what kind of interactions does the media get from Trump? And are those constructive for furthering political discourse? And I think that that's a really important thing to keep in mind, also when, when assessing how the validity of these kind of criticisms, should there be more access from the Democrats? Absolutely going forward. I hope we see that. But are all the criticisms of saying, you know, that Trump is granted so much more access than the Democrats have? Well, sure. But to what end, I
think that's an excellent point. I really do,
agreed. Catherine, what was the sense you got from the journalists you spoke to inside the convention about, you know, how they feel the Harris campaign has been so far when it comes to the media and press freedom, sort of similar to what we discussed. Or Dee, is there a I mean,
it's difficult to say, because everyone are just kind of chasing their stories during the DNC Right. Like, as much as the convention is controlled chaos for the organizers, I think it is that as well for for hungry reporters who are trying to get good stories out during this very critical period of time. So, yeah, I mean, it's. Yes, it's one of those things. Where, from my understanding, like it's, I think it's more of a known entity of how it will operate, right? There's a perception that will operate kind of like the Obama and the Harris campaign will operate like the Obama and Biden campaigns and white houses, respectively, right? So, so, yeah, I think it's a bit more comfortable in that way than the kind of volatility that we have seen for, you know, years now with with the right
so Seth, I just want to follow up on that, but I don't want to do it now, because Catherine, as you said, had a heart out, but like,
I'm here until 115 actually. So,
so if you don't mind, you know the thing that concerns me you were saying, it'll be somewhat similar to Obama, and at least from a photographer's point of view? My answer is, I hope not, because the President Obama had a his own photographer as his own personal photographer, as all presidents have had going back well over 50 years. I think the problem that we had, and we actually, I was part of a meeting with his press secretary back then, is that it's one thing for the presidential photographer to have access that nobody else has, absolutely and that's for historical purposes, but what we were finding is that there would be, even for the tight pool that follows them around, there would be no press, let's say for the Dalai Lama when they met. And then these images would be pushed out by the White House and put up. And you know it would there was really not a lot of, at least visual, meaningful access for the press, and we complained about that a lot, and for the most part, it didn't really get a whole lot better. And that was very unfortunate. So I believe that again, Trump's press, his photographer, might have had access. And again, those images were being pushed out, and we were trying to explain to the mainstream media, if you keep using these handouts, which we liken to propaganda, you wouldn't just take their press release and publish it verbatim. You fact check, you'd rewrite it, you do something with it. And yet, the pictures that were taken from inside were just oftentimes, because they were the only images used by the media, as opposed to them saying, Hey, you don't give us access to have at least one of our photographers in a tight pool in there. We're not using it.
If I can just jump off of that really quickly and say that I didn't necessarily mean that as a good thing. You know, CPJ has a report on the Obama administration and the kind of issues with with leak prosecutions, and just kind of the very tight image that I think that they tried to create, kind of analogous to what Mickey was saying with photography, right? I think the from my understanding, it was kind of a similar approach to media, more broadly, not just photographers. So it's not a good thing, but the issues are understood, I think, in a way go, you know, with that kind of model.
Thanks. I do want to move on to talk a bit about what happened outside the DNC when it comes to the protests, and maybe Mickey we can start before the convention. Can you tell us about your interactions with the Chicago Police Department leading up to the convention, and about MPP efforts to help train police, journalists, rights.
Sure. I'll back up actually a little bit more to give you the listeners a little bit of background. So back in 2008 when the DNC and RNC were at Denver and Saint Paul, there were lots and lots of protesters that were arrested. This was during the Occupy Wall Street movement. And the NPPA board asked, Hey, you know, what can we you think for the next convention in 2012 see what we can do to avoid that happening, and I'd been doing, and still continue to do a lot of training with journalists about what their rights are, but I really came to realize very soon that journalists knowing their rights, or even saying I know my rights, was oftentimes the last thing you get to say before hearing turnaround put. Hands behind your back, you're undressed, if they even got that courtesy. And so I thought, well, maybe we can start doing some training with law enforcement, if that's possible. And you know, one of the things my background is, I was a photojournalist in both print and broadcast for over 40 years, but I've also been a uniform reserve sheriff's deputy in Erie County New York for almost the same amount of time. And so I think that helped me a little bit in terms of having some credibility. So in 2012 when the NATO summit was to take place in Chicago, we were very worried because, because Illinois had this draconian law that if you recorded, whether, more particularly, audio, a police officer performing his or her duties without their permission, and you were charged and convicted, you could go to jail for 10 years. And the ACLU had challenged that law, but the law was still on the books, there was a ruling that it was unconstitutional in the District Court. It went up on appeal to the Seventh Circuit. We filed an amicus, along with another, a friend of the court brief, along with many other news organizations, and we were really worried that there were going to be journalists coming from all over the country, all over the world, who had no idea about this law and could be subject to it. The superintendent then had promised that they wouldn't enforce that law. Well, that's all well and good, but fortunately, the Seventh Circuit actually struck it down as unconstitutional, like five days before the convention. In the meantime, I had offered the Chicago Police to do First Amendment training with them, and I did it along with Greg Leslie from the Reporters Committee for freedom in the press. We trained about did the training with about 250 supervisory officers, and then I was back in Chicago in May for that NATO Summit. It was extremely unseasonably hot. There were lots of officers who were in their turtle suits. So, you know, think about how you'd feel if you're getting baked in the sun for hours and hours, you know. And police learned a lot there too, not to have everybody out there dressed in that battle armor, as it were, for so many hours, but to keep them off to the side until they're they're needed. At any rate, we were, we were fortunate that only at least as far as I knew, one photojournalist got arrested, Josh Lott from Getty, and I got a call from another photographer from Getty to tell me that, and I ended up calling the chief there, who I had contact with, told her that journalist was arrested. She said she'd look into it. About 20 minutes later, she called me back and said, Yes, he was arrested. He was charged with felony inciting a riot, and I'm kind of staring into my phone, you know, this long pause. You can imagine the look on my face, like, seriously, Chief, I might have even said that. And she said, Yeah, I know. Let me, let me see what I can do. And 20 minutes later, she called me back to say, Yeah, we reduced it down to disorderly. We found out where he was. We went there with a local lawyer, lawyer Steve Mandel, was able to get him out. That charge was later dismissed, so I was hoping we could do that again. Not have journalists arrested, but having training, it took me part of my problem, and I think other people, as well as finding the right person, the person that gets it, that understands you're not trying to sell them something. You're not trying to do anything but talk to them about the constitutional rights that police officers swear and oath to uphold. They were telling me, You know that? Yeah, they had done enough training, and they basically said, Thank you, but, but no thanks, which was the exact opposite of what had happened a few weeks earlier in Milwaukee. In Milwaukee, it took me a while in 2020 before covid started to find the right person. I did. Covid came Milwaukee wasn't going to have their convention, at least they weren't going to have the DNC back in 2020. They hosted the RNC this year. But the chief there asked me to do the training anyway, which I did. Turned out that he, four years later, I still had his cell phone number, and he was the mayor's Chief of Staff, and he was very appreciative that I called and he talked to the Milwaukee folks, and so I ended up doing a training with them. As far as I can tell. You know, I look at what I do is like chicken soup. It may not help, but it doesn't hurt. Nothing bad happened in Milwaukee. There were no incidents. I think that had more to do that there were very few, if any protests. I think that had to do with the fact that the RNC was starting very shortly after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and I think everything was a whole lot lower key than it was at the DNC in Chicago, and I'm sorry that was a very long answer to get to where we need to be.
You guys still there?
Yeah, sorry. I was on mute. I forgot to unmute myself. Sorry about that Mickey. I was saying that it was worth the long answer for that chicken soup line, I'm going to remember to remember. Okay, so, so getting, let's talk about what actually happened at the DNC. The arrests occurred primarily on Tuesday night, or exclusively on Tuesday night, and I'm guessing that police would contrast Tuesday night's protests with other protests by saying that it was an unpermitted protest. It was organized by behind enemy lines, which is known as sort of a more radical group, and that they they needed to restore, granting them that, what should they have done differently when it came to the press, and what would you have told them to do differently had you had the opportunity to do
training? So our understanding, even though I didn't do the training, we still had conversations, and those conversations took place with Steve Mandel, who was, as I said the attorney, back in 2012 he was still there. There were great attorneys working on this from a number of of law firms, and they've had conversations, and they were also identifying point that if a journalist was arrested, they wanted to have you know somebody that they can talk to, because the last thing that you want to happen is you get a call that something's going on, and you're no better positioned to deal with that in terms of who to call then, then you know than anybody else, if You don't have that that information. And so we, I got a call. I actually got a text from one of our photographers, that one photographer had been arrested and then really insured order two more, so three altogether. We heard about a fourth later on, but never got a confirmation and and so kind of put things into play. I then notified the attorneys in Chicago that I was working with that were kind of standing by waiting, waiting for this, to let them know. We tried to get as much information as we could about where they were going to be taken, because it was our understanding that they they were being taken somewhere. And so I know this is, I think, one of your questions, but I think it might make more sense to deal with it now, one of the kind of rules of engagement that we got the police to agree to was one that if there was an order of dispersal, in other words, if there was an unlawful assembly declared, which is what you need to have happen to order a dispersal. And every state has a different statute for what constitutes an unlawful assembly. But as we've seen through a number of previous court cases over the years, especially during the Black Lives Matter protests, that the courts ruled that that journalists are not participants, and usually the statute reads that you have to participate or be a participant in this unlawful assembly. And so if journalists are not participants, they're not subject to the dispersal order, and that what they're subject to are what's known as reasonable time, place and manner restrictions. So in other words, we're clearing the street. Everybody that's still in the street in the next 10 minutes is going to be arrested. And if you want to cover this, get on the sidewalk, stay on the sidewalk, go someplace where we direct you to, but you don't have to leave the area so that you can't report on it, because we were constantly telling, I mean, they didn't just concede this right away. We're like, well, you know, you're probably going to be arresting more journalists than protesters if you insist that reporters, journalists, photographers, leave the area, because they're going to stay. That's their job. So they were supposed to not be subject to those dispersal orders. Is. And then second part of that is, even if they allowed them to stay and felt that they were not complying with those reasonable time, place, manner restrictions, that if they decided to take enforcement action against a journalist, that that they would give them unless it was some major crime, they would give them a citation there, kind of like a little jaywalking summons. Of the kind of summons that you normally get, get issued without being taken into custody, just detained long enough to have that happen. So that was the second part of it that didn't happen on Tuesday night, and then the third part of it is if they did take them into custody and transport them to someplace that once we notified them through the channels we had set up that they had a journalist or journalist in custody, that they would do their best to identify them as quickly as possible and process them as quickly as possible so they could get back to doing their jobs of covering the news and gathering news and information that they could disseminate to the public. And that didn't happen either. Unfortunately, it took them quite a while to get the processing done. And, you know, quite frankly, I've looked at that as is really a constructive, and that's a legal term, a constructive prior restraint, because these journalists have been taking pictures, you know, during the evening of the event, and because they were in custody, they couldn't get those pictures out to their news outlets or their agencies or whoever they were working for, so that that was hopefully Some background and issues in terms of what happened. Eventually, they were all released. They were, I believe, all charged with one count of disorderly conduct, which is really, it's a fine. It's not, there's no jail time associated with it. And so you know, they were kept in custody approximately 10, or in some cases, more hours only to be issued that type of of a of a citation. So you know, they serve time in jail for a crime that they're judged with that is not associated even convicted of having jail time.
Catherine, if you're still there,
Seth, you're still muted. If you're trying to talk, I think,
no, I'm not. Can you not hear me? Now? I can hear you. Okay,
I don't know.
Can anybody else hear me?
Catherine, can you hear Catherine? Can hear me, Mickey, can you hear me?
I can hear both of you.
Okay, I'm not sure why Mickey can't hear Hello. I hear you, Mickey. I don't know why you can't hear me. We were having some audio issues during our during our test, and they may have resurfaced. I can hear both you,
Catherine, can you still?
I can hear you, Mickey,
well, here maybe I can invite our engagement director, Ahmed to be a speaker, and he might be.
I'm not sure what's going on, but I I'm not hearing from anybody. I'm not sure if anybody heard anything I had to say?
I wonder if Mickey should just if he can, like, join and then or leave and then come back.
Yeah, let me try texting him that in the meantime. Catherine, did you want to build on what Mickey said about the arrest of journalists and removal from the scene sort of functioning as, in effect, a prior restraint on publication. I know you refer to similar things in letters that we've collaborated on as a crude form of censorship, and I always like that line. So maybe you could, maybe you could
build up took the words right out of my mouth, yeah, no. I mean, it's, it's really concerning, if you kind of think about the news gathering that was lost by having reporters, or that is lost whenever reporters are arrested removed from it's the scene that's that's kind of the long term impact, right? Functionally, we don't have documentation of what happened from certain hours. Terms of police dispersing protests because journalists who were there to cover it were arrested, and that's that's a huge issue, and one that police should have thought of before they they arrested journalists. Is Nikki back. Now I'm back,
and I have no idea what happened, where, how far you got to hear and what happened after that.
We heard it all, so I just think you could hear us. So domestic is very informative.
Thanks, Mickey. Sorry about that. I was asking Catherine to build on your remarks about the arrest functioning as prior restraints. Yeah. I
mean, I think Mickey said it all, and Mickey would what you missed was basically just me kind of repeating that it's a crude form of censorship, which you've done a fantastic job of addressing. So,
yeah, one other thing I wanted to follow up on that Mickey had mentioned, and either of you can take this one, but Mickey had mentioned the distinction between participants in the protests and journalists covering it, and a lot of the time journalists who get arrested at protests tend to not be, say, mainstream journalists from the New York Times or Associated Press. They tend to be sort of scrappy, independent journalists who in this case, everyone who was arrested, my understanding is was credentialed and were even MPa, MPP members. But putting that aside, from a press freedom perspective, doesn't matter whether someone is a credentialed New York Times journalist or whether somebody is an independent citizen journalist attempting to inform the public through their own alternative channels. And what do you say to those who go with the well, these people are in journalists because, you know, they sympathize with such and such side, or because they they haven't been, you know, employed by a news outlet for their entire careers.
Yeah, if I, if I can just jump in here. Maybe Mickey, if you want to get into the legal specifics of it afterwards, that would be really useful, I think. But, but from from cpjs perspective, the way we define a journalist to someone who is committing an act of journalism, right, and the question that we always ask ourselves when thinking about whether or not you know a situation is a case for us, as we like to say, is whether or not that person was there, documenting versus protesting. People can hold a variety of political views and still function as reporters. It's a matter again, of like, if someone is holding a placard and screaming at the barricades and taking pictures that doesn't meet our specifications, if someone is, you know, taking pictures of the protesters engaging in, you know, protest activity. That person, for us, would meet the qualifications of being a journalist, so in that specific case, right, in those circumstances.
So, you know, I think that that was a really good explanation. I'll just add to that. So the biggest question that I get when I train police, and I've done a lot of it around the country, not just in preparation for political conventions, as a matter of fact, I've done it as part of settlements of federal civil rights lawsuits against police agencies, the biggest one being the Minnesota State Patrol, after the Black Lives Matter protest. And the question I get asked all the time is, who's a journalist? How do we know? You know everybody's running around claiming to be a journalist, and you know, we have a real problem trying to figure that out again there. What I tell them is, I wish that I had a really great bright line answer for the for them, but I don't. It's something the courts have struggled with for forever as well, but, but they, but they do their best in in the Goyette case at a minute Minnesota, they talked about indicia of being a journalist. But one of the things that I tell them is, look, if somebody as, as Catherine just said, is acting in a way that you think of as a journalist. There, they're gathering, they're writing down notes, they're recording audio, they're recording video, they're taking still pictures. They're not shouting, they're not screaming, they're not carrying banners, they're not throwing a Molotov cocktail. They're not breaking plate glass windows. They're not doing anything that's criminal. Then, just as our criminal justice system works as we would rather let 99 guilty people go free than convict one innocent person assume that they're journalists and let them do their their jobs, going back to that whole idea of credentialing if you're out in a public place where. You have a legal right to be present, or you're on private property with the permission of the owner, you don't need a press credential to photograph, record, gather information, those kinds of things. It's only the credentialing process is let's say they're holding a press conference somewhere, for example, during the DNC, the superintendent of Chicago police held a press conference. Well, the room is only so big. Just like at the White House, the room is only so big, not everybody comes in. So if you've got a credential, that's one way of them deciding you can come in if there's a dispersal order, and they're trying to figure out who are the journalists that may not have to comply with that. They need some way of trying to figure that out. And so, you know, again, we think it's really incumbent upon them, and even if they take someone into custody thinking they're not a journalist, and then have the opportunity to find out either, because many journalists in these days don't want to wear the press credentials out because they don't want to be attacked by by people who don't want their picture taken. So you know, if they have an opportunity to show their press credential which might not have been displayed for that reason, then they should also have the opportunity to kind of correct the error of their ways, not just go through the whole process and and and then try and figure it out afterwards, because, you know, that's where the federal civil rights lawsuits come in.
Thanks, and that's an important point you made towards the end about some journalists not wanting to wear their press credentials out of sort of fear of being targeted, and something related to that that I hadn't heard come up before at a protest, but at the at the Monday protests, murdered a journalist who I won't name from a pretty prominent national news outlet. Make a comment about these people who have press passes on and are wearing masks, and basically implying that they weren't real journalists, because they're, you know, wearing masks, and that aligns them with the movement. And that's another thing to keep in mind, like people wear masks because they they don't want their they're avoiding facial recognition technology or for a number of other reasons, even that, I don't think should be seen as disqualifying for someone who is, as you say, operating as a journalist, not operating as a demonstrator. And you know, I, to me, the easiest way to avoid the problem of having to distinguish journalists from demonstrators is focus on people who are breaking the law, regardless of who they are, a peaceful demonstrator and a peaceful journalist, both should not be a concern. So that,
but, but Seth, just to your point there again, and I'm trying to be, you know, fair to everyone. So you've got chaos on the street. People are running around, lots of noise, lots of chanting could be tear gas. Things are going on. It's, it's, it's not just a very calm March, and police are trying to determine who gets to stay, who gets arrested, those kinds of things. You know, it would be my suggestion, and good common sense that if you don't want to possibly even be looked at twice, wearing all black and maybe wearing a black face mask is not the best idea. Now, granted, covid, you know, during covid, everybody was wearing masks, and covid still around. So if you're wearing, you know, a K 95 mask, that's a whole lot different than wearing, you know, a mask of some other kind if you're worried about your health. So again, as a journalist, you need to kind of have that situational awareness. Keep these things in mind that on one hand, you know, I'll give you an example in Ferguson, which took place in 2014 I was down there. It was extremely hot. I was wearing a suit and tie, I know, you know, I'm not suggesting everybody do that, but I got left alone by everybody. You know, the photographers that knew me couldn't figure out why I was there, but they were grateful. The cops couldn't figure out what I was doing. But it's sometimes what you're wearing really helps convey something. And so just, I'm not suggesting what you do or what you don't do, but kind of think about it, because police are making these very spontaneous decisions they have to for their safety, and sometimes they might decide the wrong thing, depending on a first glance of how you do.
Yeah, and if I can, hello, oh, sorry, I couldn't tell if it was working. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut Mickey off, but I just wanted to jump in really quickly to say that we kind of have similar recommendations in our safety guides for journalists going out to cover protests, which I highly recommend that everyone take a look at. You know, part of situational awareness is understanding your risk profile and ways to mitigate that so it's not right, it's not good, right, and removing all value judgments and prioritizing getting in and out of a situation safely, I think that that's, you know, making sure that you are distinguishable in some way as a journalist is important. I will also just kind of echo what Mickey has said, though, that over the years, we have seen that it's increasingly more difficult for journalists to wear their press badge and have that be something that's, you know, kind of sets them apart and doesn't necessarily make them targets, both we've seen from, you know, targets from police and also protesters who don't necessarily want journalists, they're documenting everything for various reasons, right? So I think that that's really important to to recognize that, you know, it's being situationally aware and having understanding of what the greatest risks are, and kind of addressing those first rather than, you know, insisting upon, you know, wearing all black or something like
that. Yeah, absolutely. Again, to just add one more point to what Catherine said, it's, you know, when I was out on the street covering things. This is before everybody had a cell phone, and every cell phone had a camera in it. You know, I was running around with three Nikons around my neck shoulders or a big beta cam on my shoulder. It was pretty obvious who the press were. It's not that easy to try and figure out anymore. So again, think about that. Look at the guidelines. CPJ has NPPA, I've written advice as to what people have, I mean things that they need to keep in mind to keep themselves safe, like write the important phone numbers and indelible link on your arm, because everybody these days just hits a button or says to their phone call so and so, nobody remembers or knows any numbers anymore. Your phone is going to be taken from you. You're not going to have that. And then when they give you a chance to make a phone call, you possibly are not going to know what number you need to call, and the other things you know, we have thumbprints. We have face recognition to open our devices. Make sure you turn those off, because you don't want police to be able to look through your phone. What if and when they seize it? So, I mean, there's a whole bunch of things we could talk about here, but I think you really want to talk more about the DNC understood.
Thanks. Thanks to both of you. I want it before I ask one more question. I wanted to address questions coming in on on the X threads. So a couple of people have asked about whether journalists who were on the ground at the protests are going to chime in here at today's x space. So for today, we really wanted to get the benefit of Mickey's perspective, both being a legal expert and having worked with police departments at conventions before and at this one, as well, as well as Catherine's perspective having been inside the convention. But I would be happy to have another space sometime this week, even with journalists who were on the ground. And if anyone wants to be involved there, obviously I'll have to limit the numbers to make it, you know, a conversation that can be had in this format. But feel free to reach out to me at set that freedom dot press, and let's, let's, you know, try to get something later in the week where we can talk to journalists who are on the ground. That's something we were already thinking about. Do it. I had a couple names in mind, some Chicago journalists who I know, who were there, but yes, just reach out to me, because that's certainly don't want to omit the perspectives of people who who were there and experienced it. I'm sorry.
I'm gonna have to jump off. Actually, I saw about 15 minutes longer than I was supposed to. So thank you so much for having me be part of this conversation. I appreciate it.
Yeah, I was surprised you were still here. Thanks for staying.
Okay, yeah, great to chat with you all. Bye, yep, Nikki,
I just had one more question for you, if you've got a minute. Yeah, I didn't want to leave without sort of naming public officials. Tom Ahern, we heard a lot about him. I think he's so he's the news Affairs and Communications, something or other deputy with the CPD, and he sort of served as a media liaison here, and there was some. Video that circulated of him telling protests, him telling journalists that they needed to disperse or he would take their press passes. And actually, he reportedly ripped a press pass off of the, I assume, the neck of one of the journalists who were arrested, or at least one, talk about that and how he handled dispersal since it was seemed to be sort of his, his domain and his charge. And I mean to us, after we you did your you warned CPD about dispersals. We wrote an op ed in the sun times and appeared on B, E, Z, saying very similar things that mass dispersals, blanket dispersals of protesters, even in the rare instance where they're appropriate in the first place, can't include journalists. And then you've got this guy, you know, telling journalists, I'm going to take your press pass if you don't leave. And this is, this was at the Monday protest, not even the one that they you know, that they claim got got, got really out of hand. Can you talk a bit about you know him, and whether that how he handled things, whether you would want to see him in charge of another event with mass protests like this one.
So you remember I said there's a part of my biggest challenge is finding the right person to talk to about doing the training. I think we can all agree that finding the right person for any job is crucial, and that there are some people more qualified to do a job than others. Police are there, aside from public safety and to protect life and property. They're there to de escalate situations. They are trained, hopefully, in de escalation techniques, and unfortunately, where we see a lot of things happen that don't turn out so well is when they either fail to de escalate or themselves act to escalate, whether their mere presence escalates the situation. That's part of a number of lawsuits over the years, is that when I was talking about, you know, addressed in full turtle suits, ready to do battle, sometimes that can escalate the crowd. So yeah, it's my understanding that that this person was threatening to take credentials. As a matter of fact, two of the journalists that got arrested had their credentials taken by him. And fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the next day, those credentials were returned to those individuals through the great work of the lawyers that we worked with in in Chicago. But then again, on Wednesday night, there was another situation. I'm not sure if that's the video you're referring to, but that was going on again, and the photographers there were trying to explain that, no, they didn't have to disperse. Fortunately, Chief of Patrol for the Chicago PD appeared, and there's video of him having a very calm conversation with some of the photojournalists that I know, and completely deescalated the situation, and Tom can be seen in the background just standing and listening. So, you know, getting that's, I mean, that's what supervisors and command staff are there for, not necessarily expecting that everybody is going to get the message, or everybody that has gotten the message is going to abide by that message, but having somebody who's completely in charge and understands things and is willing to have a civil conversation about them, fortunately, we avoided arrests on Wednesday night because of that,
if we're gonna call out the guys who got it wrong, I might as well mean the one who got it right. That was Chief of Patrol, John hein. I don't really know I don't know him beyond this one instance. I don't want to vouch for him as a police officer or anything like that. I'm a Chicago and I'm skeptical of every police officer in the Chicago Police Department, but I think you're right, Mickey, based on the video, in this instance, he handled the situation far and away better than Mr. Hearn did, who really just seemed overwhelmed, panicked and unfamiliar with journalists first amendment rights, based on video I saw from not only the one you're talking about, on Wednesday, but on on Monday, at after the protest where, you know, after the fences were were broken, and there was a little bit of a dust up coming from that, but, but, but, but the video, and, you know, I was, I was there that day, this was long after that area was clear. There was really a reason for that level of aggression. In, but at that point was just, you know, arc full of people, mostly loitering, figuring out how they were going to get home. So thanks. Thanks for those remarks. We've gone on for way longer than I thought we would. There was one other question, VM to us by Mel Buer about reporters from his outlet, who were barred from accessing the floor on the final day because of a fire marshal's warning. I honestly don't know anything about that. That sounds like a Catherine question. I'll pass it along to her, since she's left the space already, but Thanks for, thanks for asking. I'll let her know if she's if she's got any information about that. I just I have no idea, but anyway, really appreciate everybody coming to listen here and again, happy to do another space with journalists who are actually on the ground. Please shoot me an email about that. And again, thanks to our speakers. Thanks Mickey for all of your insights, and thanks for everyone for coming out. Have a have a good week.
