This OpEd appeared in HuffPost in February, under the headline, What Happens When a Journalist Gets Beat Up? Too Often, Not Much.
By Bernie Lunzer, President, TNG-CWA
Feb. 23, 2018 – Taylor Lorenz was covering the August 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., for The Hill — and had just captured video of Heather Heyer being struck and killed by a car driven by one of the attendees — when she was knocked to the ground.
Jacob Leigh Smith of Louisa, Va., had approached Lorenz and started yelling at her to stop recording. “I showed him my press credentials,” Lorenz later told the Charlottesville police, and after he continued screaming at her “he came up behind me, punched me in the face [and] I fell forward.” He then tried to kick away the phone Lorenz was using to record the event.Taylor Lorenz was covering the August 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., for The Hill — and had just captured video of Heather Heyer being struck and killed by a car driven by one of the attendees — when she was knocked to the ground.
For the act of injuring a reporter in order to impede coverage of a news event, Smith was charged with misdemeanor assault and battery. He pleaded guilty, and his punishment was a suspended sentence, 80 hours of community service and anger management classes.
But at least Smith faced a judge. During a March 2017 demonstration by Donald Trump supporters in Huntington Beach, Calif., three staff members of OC Weekly covering the demonstration were assaulted. Then-editor Gustavo Arellano later wrote that California state park police “stood by and did nothing” at the time of the attack, and then refused to respond to his requests for a follow-up investigation.
“An assault on a reporter is not just an attack on an individual but an attack on a core foundation of our democracy. It is about time the law treats it that way.”
More than ever, the men and women who cover the news have targets on their backs, and those who go after those targets too often face little to no consequence for their crime. That is true even though an assault on a reporter is not just an attack on an individual but an attack on a core foundation of our democracy. It is about time the law treats it that way.
U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) has introduced a bill, the Journalist Protection Act, which would require law enforcement and courts to treat assaults on journalists with the seriousness they deserve. The legislation would make it a federal crime to intentionally injure a journalist engaged in newsgathering.
This legislation has become more necessary in the toxic political atmosphere fueled by such pronouncements as President Trump’s labeling of the news media as “the enemy of the American people.” In 2017, the Press Freedom Tracker, a site supported by a consortium of media organizations, chronicled 44 attacks against journalists in the U.S. These attacks came from both the left and the right, and a disturbing number even came from politicians and law enforcement. The threatening atmosphere is palpable, and even the international community is taking note: In April, the international organization Reporters Without Borders lowered the United States’ ranking on its annual World Press Freedom Index.
Physical assaults against newsgatherers come down to one purpose: to control what stories are told and who gets to tell them. The First Amendment was written to establish that no governmental authority or enraged zealot gets to make that call.
Every day — whether on a TV newscast, in a newspaper dropped on our doorstep or on a digital news site — we get a reminder of just how vital a free and independent press is for our communities and the country. The nationally known journalist covering the White House or the local city council reporter each play a vital role in keeping our citizens informed and our democracy accountable.
Protecting journalists from violent attacks, and punishing those who conduct such attacks, is one of the most important things we can do for our country and for ourselves — and the least we can ask of our Congress.