Latest / The Real News Podcast / Attacks on Press Freedom: Lawsuits, Intimidation, and the War on Journalists | Ep. 4

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Attacks on Press Freedom: Lawsuits, Intimidation, and the War on Journalists | Ep. 4 · The Real News Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: By late morning, it was clear June sixth would be
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: no ordinary Friday.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: In La June sixth, twenty twenty five, ice officers raid
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: a garment factory in downtown Los Angeles. There's another raid
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: at a home depot. They detained dozens of people. The
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: same day, Los Angeles explodes in protests. In response, they
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: ripple across the city for more than a week. The
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: first big response to the immigration crackdown in Trump's second term.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Photojournalist Nick Stern was there.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: I've been a photojournalist for around thirty years, initially in
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: the UK, and two thousand and seven I moved to
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: the US and became a citizen in twenty nineteen.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I spoke with him recently. He's worked in fifty countries
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: covering stuff like this, big protests, civil unrest. So June
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: sixth last year, Nick said, the protest was loud, noisy.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: I got pepper sprayed peppagast in my face, which was
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: pretty horrific.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: The next day is a Saturday. There are more ice
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: raids and a big protest that carries into the evening.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Nick's back on the streets and he's there throughout the day.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: It was a Saturday, It was June the seventh, and
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: it was about ten to nine in the evening.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: He told me there were a few stragglers in the protest.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: He was off to the side, kind of parallel with
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: the police, and you can even see this in some
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: cell phone footage shot and post it online from that night.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Suddenly an officer turns and fires at him with a
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: less lethal projectile.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: What's called a flashbag, which is an explosive which embedded
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: in my right thigh.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: In this video, he kind of limps off the street.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: People rush to help him. As he drops to the ground.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: There's blood pouring from his leg and he's rushed to
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: the hospital and has to undergo emergency surgery. They kept
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: him there for four days and.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: I still get pin in my leg. That device was
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: again forty millimeter and about two inches long, so a
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: pretty sizable munition embedded in my leg, he said.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: At first, they were actually afraid it was going to
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: explode inside his leg. He said in the hospital during
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: those days, he had to miss his son's graduation from
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: high school. He had these flashbacks and nightmares almost every
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: night that still haven't completely gone away, and he's had
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: to have months of treatment in particular for PTSD.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: I was doing a video interview for a documentary in London,
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: and when the director asked me to explain what happened
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: at the incident, I did in sensory terms, you know,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: explaining what it felt like, what it hurt, what the
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: air smelt like, and what sounds were going on. And
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: as I was describing to him, I broke down crying,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: and I haven't cried for many, many years, and it
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: was pretty much uncontrollable. When I got back to the US,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: I thought that I really should go and see somebody,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: and I was diagnosed by three professionals having post traumatic
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: stressed this sort of PTSD.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Like over the last year, he's still living with repercussions,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: he still has nightmares two or three days a week,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: and this PTSD induced anger, which he never felt this
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: way before.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: In fact, I've never been angry at anything, but having
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: this PTSD related anger, I feel like a bottle of
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: soda that's been shaken up with a cap that's ready
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: to be released.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: And the thing is, this is just one story, one experience.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: I'm one of dozens of journalists in Los Angeles. Every
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: single one has been brutalized assorted, detained, or arrested by LAPD.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: And that is not just journalists obviously, that is happening
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: to members of the public as well. Yeah, I don't
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: think I know of a single journalist here in Los
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Angeles who hasn't been hit by less lethal And whilst
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: the first time it happens to you, it's oh, I've
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: been hit, it's almost you know, what the fuck, it's
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: almost become the normal here. We expect to be hit
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: with less lethals now when we're out there covering protests.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: But there are journalists who have been violently pushed down,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: who like me, have been knocked down by horses, who
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: have been hit with less lethals, who have been hit
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: with buttons and having fingers broken, fingers smashed open, riggs cracked,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: wrists broken, and so on. And these are all people
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: identified as journalists.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: And of course this didn't just start with Trump. Police
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: violence against protest has been heavy handed for years, decades.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Trump's discourse now and also in his first term, though,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: legitimizes the harsh actions by law enforcement.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: So I think that law enforcement feel they have a
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: get out of jail free card with this administration. And
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: that's trickling down through the whole system.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: And here's the thing that Nick Stern told me in
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: particular about this protest, and like I said, he's been
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: on the streets covering it for twenty years in Los Angeles.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: He said this was the first time he had seen
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: this level of militarization of law enforcement.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: That was quite a shocking site to see in the US,
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: supposedly one of the most wealthiest civilized countries in the world,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: with one of the best supposed democracies that we have.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: So firstly, the vision the site of these troops and
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: military vehicles on the street was quite shocking, but also
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: the way in which they were reacting. You know, some
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: of the places I've been, some of the civil unrest
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: I've seen, you will see this kind of action from
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: military forces. But that is when there is a central
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: civil war and uprising or something similar to that, not
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: what is considered to be initially a peaceful protest. Well,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: I have to be honest with you, Michael, what I'm
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: saying here is is probably worse than I've seen in
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: many other countries around the world. I've worked in Eastern Europe,
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: where you have obviously very authoritarian or you did have
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: very authoritarian governments and secret police and so on, and
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: what we're seeing here on the streets is possibly worse
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: than that in terms of the conduct of law enforcement,
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: the strategy of law enforcement, and the lack of accountability.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I think as well.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: And for me, what's so concerning is that this is
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: attacks on journalism and the assault on press freedom today
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: in the United States. This is the Battle for Free Speech,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: a multipart narrative podcast brought to you by the Real News.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: In this series, we take you on a journey to
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: understand the important role free speech has played in US
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: history and the fight being waged over it. Today I'm
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: your co host, Michael Fox, and I'm so excited to
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: be joined today by Tea Graham. She's an investigative journalist
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: and a Capitol Hill correspondent with The Real News. She's
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: also the co host of The Real News is Inequality
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Watch and The Police Accountability Report. Tya, thank you so
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: so much.
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's an absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: for having me, Michael.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Of course, folks, if you've been listening to this podcast
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: series from the beginning, then you probably know how it works.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: I go out, I do a ton of reporting, bring
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: that all back for us to discuss, and this episode
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: is no different. So today we're going to focus the
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: entire time on press freedom and the attacks on the press,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: particularly under the Trump administration. And I want to start
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: where we left off at the top and put some
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: contexts into what we heard from Nick Stern. So a
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: few days ago I dug into the US Press Freedom Tracker.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: It's an incredible online source from the Freedom of the
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Press Foundation. It essentially tracks cases of attacks on press
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: freedom in the US. According to the Tracker, last year,
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: there were one hundred and ninety five assaults on journalists,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: most of them by law enforcement. And just to put
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: that into perspective, that's about double the number from twenty
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: twenty four, before Trump's second term, and four times what
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: it was in twenty twenty two in twenty twenty three. Incredible. Now,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: to be clear, it was even higher in twenty twenty
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Remember that was the Black Lives Matter protests, so things
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: just exploded through the roof. But then that was also
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: during Trump ups you know, that was during his first term.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: But this year, as of mid June, we're on pace
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: to break last year's figures. There have been more than
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: one hundred assaults on journalists, more than thirty arrests, and
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: numerous cases of equipment damage were seized and other incidents.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: You know, Taya, you've covered police brutality a ton. You know,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: what have you seen how to violence violations against journalists
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: fit into that? Have you seen an uptick of assaults
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: and violations against the press in recent years? Are under
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: the Trump administrations?
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: Oh, I've definitely seen an uptick in assaults against journalists.
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: I mean that absolutely is beyond a shadow of a doubt.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: But I've also seen it against members of the public
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: as well, also exercising their First Amendment rights. And one thing,
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: you know, I just want people who are listening to
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: know your average journalist when they sign up for this job,
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: it's because it's a calling, It's because it's a vocation.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: And we already know that we're willing to go to
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: jail for a source. We already know that we're going
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: to protect that whistleblower that is helping us do that investigation.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: What a lot of us aren't prepared for, though, is
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: being shot in the face with a rubber bullet and
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: being blinded in one eye, or being put in jail
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: for days at a time and no one being able
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: to know where you are. That is something that a
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: lot of us weren't prepared for because we thought we
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: were in the United States, Land of the Free.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: So important because it's a reality, and I don't think
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: people understand just how deep that reality goes, and how
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: much journalists have their back against the wall, and how
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: difficult this moment is because there's so many things, like
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: you know, you can read, oh, a journalist gets arrested
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: or a journalist is assaulted, but there's so many other layers,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: which we're going to get into in today's podcast. But
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: there's so many other layers that things that have to
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: happen in order for all that to get pushed to
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: the side. And like what we heard from Nick Sturn
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: at the very top, it's a year later and he's
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: still suffering the consequences, you know, of being shot with
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: a less legal lethal in the leg I want to
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: take a step back a little bit.
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: Reporters Without Borders is warning press freedom has fallen to
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: its lowest level since the group began publishing its annual
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: World Press Freedom Index twenty five years ago.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: It was shocking to me when in late April I
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: saw the announcement that press freedom around the world was
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: at a twenty five year low and that the United
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: States had dropped to sixty fourth on the World Press
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Freedom Index. I mean, I mean, I don't even have
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: words to describe what this is. So just so people understand,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: the World Press Freedom Index is released from the group
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Reporters Without Borders every year. They've been doing it for
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: the last twenty five years. They judge on five criteria
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: legal security, political, social, and economic issues relating to press freedom.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: But in all of this, the United States is not
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: doing well. Sixty fourth in the world and Taya, just
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: to give you a little context, So that's seven countries
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: lower than it was last year. Also, according to the index,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: the United States has now rated a quote problematic country
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: with quote significant constraints on press freedom and where quote
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: self censorship is common. The United States now ranks below Botswana, Mauritanya,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: even Ukraine, the Ivory Coast, and it's a whole twelve
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: points back from Brazil.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: Incredible.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Now, it's been backsliding for years. When Reporters Without Borders
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: first began to publish this it was at number seventeen,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: So it's fallen forty seven spots since then. And this
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: huge drop clearly over the last year is directly related
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: to the Trump administed stration and Trump pulling out all
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: the stops to try and control the quote information environment
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: in the United States today. Taya, you're like on the
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: ground in Washington, You're on the ground in Baltimore. I
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: feel like people are going on with their lives. People
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: are getting more and less and less news from outlets,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: They're getting more and more stuff from social media, and
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: you never know if it's real or not. You know,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: how are you seeing this transformation happening on the ground.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I agree with you that the Trump
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: administration should not be underestimated in the role that they
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: have played in lowering us on that list of press freedom.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: But one thing that I've noticed as a reporter on
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: the ground watching the industry itself, is that if we
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: don't acknowledge the role that capitalism is playing, we're doing
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: ourselves a real disservice here because there has been unprecedented consolidation.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: But what happens is with this media consolidation, you have
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: owners that are now billionaires with their own particular political
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: views that are pressing down from the top onto the journalists.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: Journalists have to worry about getting access. If you criticize
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: the wrong politician a little too loudly, you've now lost access,
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: whether that's to the oval office or to your local
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: city hall. So there is access, there's making sure that
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: you don't lose advertisers, there's making sure that you don't
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: make the shareholders unhappy. So what ends up happening for
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: because I think someone needs to talk about what's happening
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: to reporters. They are getting squeezed on all sides, just
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: through the consolidation process and the overall downsizing that's happening
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: because as it consolidates, the number of jobs decreases, so
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: reporters are losing their jobs. As a matter of fact,
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: local press is dying. So many small newspapers and websites
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: are being shut down, which means people aren't going to
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: get information. And one thing I always tell people when
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: they have a little bit of distrust around the press,
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: I say, you know what, be glad someone like me
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: is showing up at city hall, because if you think
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: your politicians are behaving badly, while I'm watching guess what
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: they're gonna do when I'm not watching this. Okay, you
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: do need us folks on the ground.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: That's right Throughout the lawsuits and the harassments and the attacks,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: the detentions, the deportations against journalists that we're seeing from
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the government. The end of the day, the real goal
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: is self censorship. The real goal is to make people
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: afraid so they will not speak out. And that's not
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: just for the press. I mean, we've seen that in
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: the last couple of episodes in this podcast already, where
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: the Trump administration is pushing against anybody it possibly can
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: in order to try and force them to not speak out.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Hey, I want to bring in someone here.
• 15:54
  Speaker 6: My name is Catherine Jacobson, and I'm the US, Canada
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: and Caribbean program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Her.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And I feel like her analysis is really really important
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: because you know, they're out there day after day standing
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: up for journalists and trying to analyze what's happening on
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: the front lines. And she basically says that for the
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: free press community, the second Trump administration is pretty much
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: a worst case scenario.
• 16:22
  Speaker 6: We're talking about regular lawsuits being launched against news media outlets,
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: both from the sitting president of the United States, which
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: is absurd to think about, right but yet happening, as
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: well as his associates when they don't like the reporting.
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: We're also seeing the Federal Communications Commissions and other regulatory
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: bodies being used or the administration trying to use them
• 16:43
  Speaker 6: in novel ways, really pushing the bounds of what these
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: regulatory institutions are supposed to be doing to try and
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: shape coverage.
• 16:53
  Speaker 7: CBS is no good and in fact, in honor of you,
• 16:57
  Speaker 7: I just sued CBS today because of six.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: I just want to give some numbers here. So Trump
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: has filed nine different lawsuits against media outlets since twenty twenty.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: He's demanded billions of dollars for damages for what he
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: says are false or misleading reports a judge throughout the latest.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Just in April, Trump had sued the Wall Street Journal
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: for ten billion dollars for defamation for a story about
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: a birthday letter from Trump to Jeffrey Epstein. But this
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: gets into kind of what you were just mentioning to you.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: The reality is that it doesn't matter if Trump's lawsuits
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: are legitimate or not. The idea is to attack his opponents,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: divert the attention and make them cough up millions of
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: dollars in legal fees, and of course scare these media
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: outlets and their journalists away from reporting critically against Trump
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: and his government.
• 17:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, the lawsuits that we're currently seeing from the Trump
• 17:55
  Speaker 6: administration and his associates such as Cashptel Right really seem
• 18:00
  Speaker 6: like they are being deployed to silence coverage or intimidate
• 18:05
  Speaker 6: journalists from covering certain topics right from reporting critically on
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: this administration. However, merely filing these lawsuits creates both an
• 18:17
  Speaker 6: expensive and time consuming distraction from what these outlets should
• 18:21
  Speaker 6: be doing.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: It's terrifying because on multiple levels he is intimidating not
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: just journalists, but the people that journalists rely on. There
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: are people in the government who are whistleblowers, who are sources,
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: and you have seen, for example, how Secretary Hegseth has
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: gone out of his way to try to pursue any
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: leaks to the point where I believe he's actually giving
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: lie detector tests to know people who worked underneath him.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: So this lets you know that they are incredibly serious
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: about preventing anyone from within the government to speaking to
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: people in the press, and that actually something that has
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: to happen. We we don't have a pair of magical
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: binoculars that allows us to see inside. We have to
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: have whistleblowers. We have to have people willing to speak
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: to us so we can let people know what's really
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: going on behind the scenes. And so understandably, if you're
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: seeing reporters jailed, if you're seeing reporters being taken into court,
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: you know you might be if you see reporters having
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: their phones taken away. I believe it was a reporter
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: at the Washington Post or at her entire house rated,
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: had her phones taken, had her computer taken. Wouldn't you
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: be worried to speak to Washington that next Washington Post
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: reporter who says, it's okay, you can give me this information, Well,
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: how do I know they won't find out it's me?
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: How do I know my contact information is going to
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: be protected?
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: The FBI has rated the home of a Washington Post
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: journalist who's been covering the Trump administration's federal government firing
• 19:45
  Speaker 6: since he took office.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: The woman that you mentioned, the Washington Post reporter Hannah
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: nat Natsinsen, And it was mid mid January when when
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: the FBI searched her home Northern Virginia home, they seized
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: her watch, phone, two laptop, computers. Agents now agents said, oh,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: we're not after you, that's not the focus of the investigation.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: You haven't done anything wrong. But the problem is just
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: like what you just said, it's chilling because someone just
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: raided her home. Like FBI agents go in, they seize things.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: She knows they're seeing all the documents. They said, what
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: they were really after was classified information that a source
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: inside the Pentagon, a Pentagon contractor, had passed her. But
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: what it really does is exactly what you were just saying, Toya.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Is it is It sends this message to other people
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: within the Pentagon, don't talk to the press. Talk to
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: the press, and there will be repercussions. Absolutely, Taya, I
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: have a little quiz for you.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: Oh no, it's okay, pop quiz.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I would not have gotten this either. And it's related
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: to Trump's lawsuits against media organizations. When do you think
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: was the last time that a sitting president, or any
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: president for that matter, sued a media outlet for defamation
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: or libel?
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: Okay, my guess would be potential. I know there was
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: some issue with President Obama and Fox News, and so
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: I was thinking there might have been some kerfuffle there.
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: But in all honesty, no, I'm not sure.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: It's a little bit further back. It's okay. I would
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: never have guessed this either. Nineteen twelve, Oh my Teddy Roosevelt.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: He sued against an editorial in a small weekly in
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Michigan's Upper Peninsula which called him a liar and a
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: drunk nineteen twelve. And of course Trump is a big
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Trump is a big fan of Teddy Roosevelt. Remember this
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: is the president who had the motto walk softly and
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: carry a big stick. So Trump likes this guy. But still, like,
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: we're talking about more than one hundred and ten years ago,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: that was the last time that you had a president
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: actually suing media outlets, and now it's happening all the time,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: plus Cash, Paedel and all, you know, like all all
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: the other, all the other folks.
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: I thought you were going to drag out the Sedition act.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: I'm like, are we going back to the seventeen hundred?
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: We could, but we've talked about it in past episodes.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: It's crazy that it's like, no, it's crazy that we
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: actually have to be even talking about this. I mean seriously,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: this is like we should not have to talk about
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: this in twenty twenty six. But it's not just about
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: the lawsuits, right, And this is something that as I've
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: been digging into this episode has also been just shocking,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: shocking for me, like because the other thing that we
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: see from Trump is this other level of attacking journalists, harassment,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: attacks on the press, in particular during press conferences, and
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: particularly against female journalists. Oh, Like, it's shocking and relentless.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: And I was just watching like some of the videos recently,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: like he calls them names. He calls women journalists, you know, stupid. Well,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: I do you know anything about what you were talking
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: that you'll be able?
• 23:01
  Speaker 8: You do?
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think you do.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: I don't just telling you that he said anxious reporter
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: in the whole.
• 23:07
  Speaker 9: Place, are you stupid?
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: You're a stupid person.
• 23:10
  Speaker 9: But with a corrupt reporter standing right there never smiles,
• 23:14
  Speaker 9: she never SAI know who you are? Fake newsbcakes.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: Low IQ is one that he often likes to use
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: for African American female journalists. I actually I'm still stunned
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: when I think back to the National Association of Black Journalists,
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: and I believe they had the black journalists uh from
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Fox there, but they also had the lovely Rachel Scott
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: and he was so incredibly rude to her. Blamed her
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: for a bit of trouble with the audio equipment, called
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: her stupid, called her low IQ, called her an idiot,
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: and this is just commonplace. I think recently he told
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: a reporter, quiet, piggy.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Tell what is Trump trying to do? Do you think
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: with his just constant verbal assaults, in particular against women,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: like what is what is his goal?
• 24:06
  Speaker 6: Is?
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: End goal there?
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: I think to some people who support President Trump, who
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: voted for him two and three times, I think they
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: see his bollishness, his willingness to attack, as a sign
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: of strength. I think that's how he perceives it, and
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: I think that's how some of the people who support
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: him perceive it. Look at him, look at him giving
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: it to those elites. Look at him, you know, saying
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: what he really thinks. But in general, I think it
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: is to sow a baseline disrespect and distrust for the
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: media to say, if the president doesn't respect you, why
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: should I If he doesn't listen to you, why should
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: I why should I trust anything you have to say?
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: My president just said you're domin, stupid and a liar
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: and show's your organization. Why should I trust you? So
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: I think it's part of his larger movement to say
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: don't trust anyone's voice.
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: But mind.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Trump is doing the same thing online. Right, He makes
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: these attacks over social media as well. This is something
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: that the CPJ's Catherine Jacobson also said.
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: When you have the leader of the free world lobbing
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: attacks on a social media platform which he owns, by
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: the way, against the media because he doesn't like coverage,
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: I mean, if that's not a dog whistle, I'm not
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: sure what is right That really creates a permission structure
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: for other individuals to go after journalists when they don't
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: like their reporting, or to take other actions. Right should
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: also mention that the majority of online harassment is against
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: women and journalists of color and journalists with non traditional
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: sexual warnings. Right, And so you think about those traditionally
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: marginalized voices that are being targeted and silenced, and we
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: really lose part of the I think strength of having
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: plurality in media and having different voices and different points
• 26:17
  Speaker 6: of view reporting on the news and what's happening.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: And of course that's the goal. The goal is to
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: ensure that the public is less informed. That's why this
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: is happening right now. You don't want more transparency in
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: the Pentagon. The idea right now is to make sure
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: that there is absolutely zero transparence so they can do
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: whatever they want right absolutely.
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: And this lack of transparency is going to be enhanced
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: by the fact that right now with the media consolidations
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: that have been taking place, they are are essentially media
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: organizations waiting on Ben Denee for President Trump to give
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: approval for their merger to go through. And these are
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: billions and billions and billions of dollars that are on
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: the line. So essentially President Trump is selling his influence
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: and selling the benefit of his influence. If you give
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: me loyalty, if you publicly demonstrate respect, if you say
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: the things I want to hear, then things will go
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: smoothly for you. So it's an extreme form of influence peddling.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: And unfortunately, some of these billionaires just seem to get
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: right on board. I mean, whether it's Jeff Bezo's in
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: the Washington Post or David Ellison trying to do his
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: paramount skydance deal or you know what even Ela Musk
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, even though every once in a while various
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: drugs will kick in and he'll say something saucy to
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: the president on social media in general, you know, he
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: had taken what was an imperfect town square and made
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: it into a pay for place site where you got
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: to pay for your blue check if you want any
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: chance of your tweets being seen, and has turned it
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: into a bot of racist bot wasteland.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, I want to tell you a story. We're
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: gonna visit Minneapolis, Minnesota right now, and we talked a
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: little bit earlier about FBI raiding a Washington Post journalists house,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: confiscating seizing her equipment. But we're also seeing press being
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: taken to jail for their reporting. And this is exactly
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: what happened to the Emmy Award winning journalist Georgia Fort.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: She's also the vice president of the Minnesota chapter of
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: the National Association of Black Journalists. And so imagine this scene.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: It's early morning, January thirtieth, cold outside Minneapolis, Minnesota. Snow
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: is on the ground. Remember, at this moment, Minnesota has
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: been on fire for weeks after ice raids and protests
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: the killing of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pritty.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Georgia fort is in her home and police are at
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: her door. She goes live to thousands of followers.
• 29:12
  Speaker 10: Agents are at my door right now. They're saying that
• 29:14
  Speaker 10: they were able to go before a grand jury sometime
• 29:19
  Speaker 10: I guess in the last twenty four hours, and that
• 29:22
  Speaker 10: they have a warrant for my arrest. I've talked to
• 29:26
  Speaker 10: my attorney and I'm being advised to go with them.
• 29:31
  Speaker 10: I guess down to Whipple.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: It's a chilling video, and at one moment you can
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: see the police actually outside.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: And.
• 29:42
  Speaker 10: My children are here. They're impacted by this. This is
• 29:46
  Speaker 10: all stemming from the fact that I filmed a protest
• 29:52
  Speaker 10: as a member of the media.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: And when I watch this Taya, I imagine myself in
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: her shoes. The police are arriving at your home. What
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: that means for me, what that means for my family,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: for my kids. They're there to cart you off to
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: jail for doing your job. It seriously seems like something
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: out of a dictatorship, out of authoritarian government. The secret
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: police are coming to round you up for speaking the truth.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: So they take Georgia fort to jail. She's arrested along
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: with the former CNN anchor Don Lemon, on federal felony charges,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: and they're arrested for violating two laws. The first one
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: eighteen seventy one originally designed to combat the klu Klux Klan,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: and the other one is in nineteen ninety four law
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: written to protect abortion clinics, but which also prohibits interfering
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: with religious worship. And the reason why this is happening
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: is because earlier that month, January eighteenth, they'd covered and
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: live streamed and anti ice protest inside of a church
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: where one of the pastors also an ice field agent.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: All right, if you guys are just joining us, I
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: am here in Saint Paul and the brutal cold at
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: a church on a summit, where as you heard from organizers,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the pastor is in an acting leadership position of ice
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the ice and.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: So they were just doing their job. The video is
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: still online and they're they're talking to the people, they
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: even speak with another pastor, and yet you know, within
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: two weeks they're rounded up, as well as several other
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: people who had actually participated in the protest. People were
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: clearly livid like people hear about her arrest, Her colleagues
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: come out, they denounce it, they hold the protest.
• 31:47
  Speaker 11: Georgia Fort is in federal custody for doing her job.
• 31:56
  Speaker 11: One of the scariest moments of my life and in
• 32:00
  Speaker 11: my career to know that a fellow journalist, a top journalist,
• 32:08
  Speaker 11: an award winning journalist, is right now sitting in federal
• 32:14
  Speaker 11: custody for doing her duty. And if we leave here
• 32:22
  Speaker 11: with anything today, let's leave here making sure that the
• 32:25
  Speaker 11: main thing stays the main thing. Journalism is under attack,
• 32:32
  Speaker 11: the First Amendment is under attack, and democracy is crumbling.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: She was released later that day on bail, and as
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: was Don Lemon, and she was greeted by supporters and
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: spoke to the press as.
• 32:55
  Speaker 8: I reflect as a journalist who has worked in media
• 32:59
  Speaker 8: for more than seventeen years, I leave this Federal courthouse
• 33:04
  Speaker 8: today with one question, do we have a constitution or not?
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Like it's just this one example, her case again, just
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: like Nick Stern, just like so many other people we've
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: talked about. It's one example, but here again, the goal
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: is to chill speech, to scare reporters, to restrict critical reporting,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: what people are covering, and It's so important to understand
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: kind of what's not just what happens to her, but
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: what happens later on, because just last month, there was
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: a report that came out that she says she's still
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: being silenced. See fort is one of dozens of co
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: defendants arrested after that church protest. And since many of
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: those people who were arrested are prominent community leaders, since
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: they were arrested there and the legal cases are ongoing,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: it means that her lawyers, Georgia forty lawyers have said
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: that speaking with them might put her own case in jeopardy,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: and so it means that she has to deal with
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: the legal fees, she has to deal with the time,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: but she can't also speak with her sources and those
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: community leaders. I mean, you know, as a community journalist,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: like this is everything. These are your sources, these are
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: your people you go to. But now she can't even
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: reach back out to them because they're also members of
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: the same lawsuit.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: I see what you're saying.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: These arrests, these attacks, all of it kind of takes
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: time out away from your journalists. All of it kind
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: of pushes you away from focusing on the real issues
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: that are there.
• 34:35
  Speaker 8: Do we have a constitution? That is the pressing question
• 34:39
  Speaker 8: that should be on the front of everyone's minds.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: Teya. It is very clear that there are two issues
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: that this administration really cares about.
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: I think at the very beginning, it was campus protests
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: and and coverage of the campus protests, right, and of
• 35:03
  Speaker 6: course referring to the Israel Gousl war and students protesting
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: against that.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: This kind of came out a little bit when I
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: was speaking with the CPJS Catherine Jacobson. She dug into
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: this a little bit more.
• 35:14
  Speaker 6: That was the initial trip Boyer issue, and now we're
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: also seeing immigration being added to that, and that, I think,
• 35:21
  Speaker 6: and the issues around immigration and customs enforcement actions and
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: Department of Homeland Security more broadly, and the way that
• 35:27
  Speaker 6: individuals are being detained by ICE and other at DHS
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: agents on American streets without warrant.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: And she said, we're seeing this slow shrinking space for
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: free speech specifically around these two issues. Yes, And I
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: think this is interesting because you know, things happen all
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: the time and we see them, and the news goes
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: and we don't always put all the pieces together. But
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: like even just the people that we've been talking about
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: right now, you know you see Nick Stearn was shot
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: covering the anti immigration protes tests Georgia. Fort and Don
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: Lemon were jailed for covering ice protests. Most of the
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: assaults and the arrests on journalists over the last year
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: of all happened during the ice raids, the protests against
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: the immigration crackdown. And that's for journalists. But these stakes
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: are even higher for immigrant journalists that are covering these things.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: And Taya, I want to tell you a story that
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: really underscores this. Mario Gebada. He's a journalist who fled
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: El Savador in two thousand and four with his family
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: due to political persecution. He moved to Atlanta, Georgia. He
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: became a resident. He worked in media. He's been a
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: journalist for Spanish language outlets. In twenty twenty four, he
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: founded his own outlet, MG News. He is legally or
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: he was legally in the country with a work visa,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: though he had filed for a green card, and in
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: recent years he has been laser focused on immigration, in
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: particular covering the ice raids in the Atlanta region. Okay
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: mia Ya yah Ah Okay grasses glusses and and Teya
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: his stuff is is really local, really community based, and
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: really good. So a bunch of his videos from earlier
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: this year show him in his car. He's gotten a
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: tip that ICE agents are out and about, and he
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: goes to document and to advise the immigrant community. What's happening,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: where are people, what do you need to do? Where
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: should you not go? He tries to identify those who
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: have been detained. So in one video, he kind of
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: gets out of his car and goes to a truck
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: that's just sitting there because the people who are inside
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: the truck have have been you know, detained and arrested
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: by ICE agents. Sononnes he goes to the home of
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Latino community members who've been picked up by ICE. He
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: like talks to the families. So it's powerful, solid journalism,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: the journalism that we absolutely need right now, imperative journalism,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: and he's doing it for the immigrant community that really
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: this like this is the place that it really matters.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: In one video, he's talking to his followers and he
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: says that by recording these lives, he's letting people know
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: about the raids that are being carried out by federal officers,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: so that people can know the truth so they know
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: what's happening around them. A couple of people like respond
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: in this one live that he did, saying, well, they're
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: afraid of you. He says, they're not afraid of me,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: but they're afraid of being filmed. They don't like being
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: on camera, but they're not afraid of me. I'm just
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: another guy. I'm another journalist, you know. Anyway, fast forward
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: to June fourteenth, twenty twenty five, there have been.
• 38:54
  Speaker 12: Rallies across the country opposing President Trump's agenda. On the
• 38:57
  Speaker 12: day of the President's military parade, a week of demonstrations
• 39:01
  Speaker 12: against immigration rates that began in Los Angeles and spread nationwide.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: This is the day of the first nationwide No King's protests, right,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: and so these protests kind of ripple across the country.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: And on this day, Mario Gavada is covering a No
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: King's protest in Doraville. It's a city just northeast of Atlanta,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: very large Latino population, and he's detained by Doraville police
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: on three misdemeanor charges, including unlawful assembly and being a
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: pedestrian on the street. So clearly these are the same
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: charges that so many free speech advocates have talked about
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: that they just kind of lump and give you to
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: get you off the jail, and send you to the jail
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: and get you off the street.
• 39:45
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: It's stuff that many journalists in the United States are
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: facing today, and in most cases these charges are eventually dropped,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: but in Mario's case, because he's not a US citizen,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: it sets in motion this series of events that essentially
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: have him locked up for months, passed on to ice,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: and despite the fact that he is in the country legally,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: he spends more than one hundred days in jail, and
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: then on October fourth, twenty twenty five, after two decades,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: two decades in the United States, he's deported Backdale Savage.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: So he was met by local media when he arrived
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: in San Salvador. He told CNN in Espanol that he
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: could never have imagined being held in prison like a
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: criminal for four months and then being deported. I was
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: just another protagonist of the same stories that I've been
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: covering for a long time, he said.
• 40:46
  Speaker 9: So.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: The Committee to Protect Journalists followed his case closely and
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: spoke out in his defense, and in fact, Catherine Jacobson
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: had a lot to say about this.
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: I think that was a shelf breaking moment and kind
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: of this watershed moment for understanding what is happening here.
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: The tactics, we saw the timeline of the US government
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: trying to claim that he was here illegally and throwing
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: in all of these facts, trying to distort the case.
• 41:09
  Speaker 6: It felt like something out of Eastern Europe, right out
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: of that type of playbook, out of a hungry pre
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: or during Orbonne type situation, right. And I think to
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: realize that that was happening in the US, that this
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: understanding of protections and freedom of speech, freedom of the
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: press that we have so long come to enjoy could
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: be so blatantly violated. And you're staring at the page
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: thinking have I missed what is actually happening? If I
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: missed something, and coming back to the same reality that no,
• 41:41
  Speaker 6: I haven't. The government is trying to convince me that
• 41:44
  Speaker 6: I have. And that's both deeply upsetting and incredibly frustrating
• 41:51
  Speaker 6: and angering, I think to a certain extent.
• 41:53
  Speaker 13: Right Sadly, Mario's case is not the only case of this.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: This is not the only time that this has happened.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: I want to take you someplace else. Nashville Tennessee. March
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: fourth of this.
• 42:13
  Speaker 6: Year, a Nashville Notesias reporter is in ICE attention tonight,
• 42:18
  Speaker 6: raising questions about why she was detained in the first place.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: The journalist is Stephanie Rodriguez and her husband have just
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: dropped off their child at a bus stop and they're
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: pulled over by several vehicles of ICE agents. Is Stephanie
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: is from Colombia. She left Colombia in twenty twenty one
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: after receiving death threats because of her reporting. And she
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: is in the United States legally. She came in on
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: asylum and she's now applying for a green card through
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: her husband. Like Mario Gevada, is Stephanie Rodriguez covers immigration.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: She's covering the arrests and the ICE cracked down on
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: the local community in the Nashville area. She works for
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Spanish language outlet called Nashville Noticias and that is literally
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: written on the side of their car. And that's important
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: because according to reports, this operation had been planned by
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: ICE for some time, like they literally had been tracking
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: the movements and the patterns of Stephanie and her husband,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Alejandro Medina. He spoke to press and he described getting
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: pulled over.
• 43:22
  Speaker 14: He tells me to roll down my window, and he's like, hey, look,
• 43:24
  Speaker 14: I know you're a US citizen. I know that's your wife.
• 43:27
  Speaker 14: I know y'all have a penning green card application, but
• 43:30
  Speaker 14: she's got to come with US.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: ICE agents. They detain Stephanie Rodriguez and she's held for days.
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: There's even a period where no one knows where she is.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Then they got word that she's been transported to a
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: jail in Alabama and then transferred to Louisiana. For several days,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: she's held in isolation. They won't let her speak with
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: her lawyers, and her husband spoke out to a news.
• 43:59
  Speaker 14: Outlet, she doesn't get to live her normal life right
• 44:02
  Speaker 14: now at this very moment, right like she's locked up
• 44:04
  Speaker 14: like she's a criminal, when she did everything she was
• 44:07
  Speaker 14: supposed to do, including like we were proactive.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: And you know, you asked about the situation on the
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: inside at jail. In her case, she did speak out
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: about this because she said that she had been held
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: in isolation for roughly five days. At one point they
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: said that she had lice, though that was nothing that
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: she knew of or ever heard of this before, and
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: they gave her like a like cleaning fluid, like floor
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: cleaning fluid, to like pour on her head to like
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: get the lice out. And so she like poured a
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: little bit on her head and then they said that's
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: not enough, and they literally just dumped it on her
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: head and her eyes were burning. And so for her,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: she doesn't even believe that she had lice. And for her,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: this was you know, a harassment technique against her to say, oh, yeah,
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: do this, come into jail. We're going to do what
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: we want with you. Essentially, she said they knew who
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: she was because when she was in jail, officers there
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: would say, oh, you're the you're the journalists. They like
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: they they knew who she was. Right in her case,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: she was finally released on a ten thousand dollars bond
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: after fifteen days in prison, but her and her lawyers
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: are really concerned that, you know, while she's out, it
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: could just happen again. You know, there's nothing that's going
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: to stop them from doing it again. And again this
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: goes back to you to this like scare tactic, right
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: of it's not just about the arrest, it's about we
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: want to scare you and to stop you from doing
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: whatever is that you're doing, and in this case, particularly
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: speaking to the Spanish language community about ICE raids, about
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: what ICE is doing in that local area. So her
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: lawyers have asked the court to prohibit immigration officials from
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: taking any future actions again against her in retaliation against
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: her quote past speech, or to chill her future speech.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: She wrote in a legal declaration, I won't stop being
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: a reporter. I've wanted to do it since I was
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: a little girl, and it's in my DNA. But with
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: the threat of redetention hanging over me, I worry even
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: more about reporting on ICE because I believe that reporting
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: is what triggered my detention.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: You know, as as a journalist who's also an immigrant,
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: she is uniquely vulnerable to this type of intimidation. But unfortunately,
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: as a journalist who's an immigrant, she is uniquely perfect
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: to go into communities and be trusted. So she can
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: go into immigrant communities and speak the language and let
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: people know that she's a safe person to talk to.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: So she's someone uniquely predisposed with everything that's needed to
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: be able to go into these communities and have important
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: conversations as well as give out information in a trusted manner.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: But it also makes her uniquely situated to be targeted.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: And so I wonder if this is not only going
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: to have an effect on journalists who are immigrants, but
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: on reporting around immigration and ice in general, no matter
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: what your citizen status might be. Because the idea of
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: being locked up for one hundred days for being a pedestrian,
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: or lawfully or unlawfully assembling, or just simply by doing
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: your job as a journalist and speaking to people, I mean,
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: that is horrifying. Yeah, And I've seen people disappear, get
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: picked up in one state and end up in a
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: jail in Louisiana, and it is a horror story every
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: time they come back out, and they are disappeared for days,
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: if not months at a time, and most people can't
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: afford to bail themselves out, hire the lawyers, and don't
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: have the knowledge or wherewithal to figure out how to
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: find someone who's been purposefully disappeared by government. This wasn't accidental,
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: this was purposeful. They're not making it easy for it.
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: That's right, that's right to find your love to one exactly,
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: you know.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: The CPJ's Catherine Jacobson said something I think is really important,
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: and she said that what we're seeing is a pattern.
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: And denying that that pattern exists, I think would be
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: in a front both to logic and transparency of what's
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: going on.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: And that's terrifying when you think of I mean, it
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: goes a long hand in hand with the pattern of
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: the disappearances and the kidnapping we've seen in immigrant communities
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: all across the United States. But it goes hand in
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: hand with that because these are journalists, These are immigrant
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: journalists reporting on immigrant communities, and they are being picked
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: up and even if they're not being you know, deport
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: like in the case of Mario Gavadis, he's deported. They
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: didn't deport Stephanie Rodriguez, but she was locked up for
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: more than two weeks, sent across I don't know how
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: many states, uh. And she's afraid for you know, for
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: her job, to be able to continue to do what
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: she does. And remember, she's someone who faced threats in Colombia.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: She fled Columbia because of reporting that she was doing
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: in Colombia, and then she has to face it again
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: in the United States, the very place where she thought
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: that she could be free. At least that's the idea
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: of the American dream, right, or at least that's what
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: it's supposed to be.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: That's what our constitution promises us. But that's why I
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: say the First Amendment isn't an enforceable right. It's one
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: that has to be protected every day, built precedent by precedent,
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: and fought for person by person. The truth is getting
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: squeezed out in the middle. It's just billionaires continuing to
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: make the narrative what they want it to be, while
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: real information and local reporting like you were describing that
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: she was doing for Nashville, it becomes completely moon and
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: is utterly destroyed.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Tay, I want to talk about censorship. I want
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: to talk about this word for a second because I
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: think this is really important. Censorship today isn't some guy
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: with a pen.
• 50:05
  Speaker 14: So I'm mistaking this is the sensor.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: It's not mandate or addicted. It comes through the threats.
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: It comes through the violations, the violence, the harassment, the jailings,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: the deportation, and the creation of trying to make people's
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: self censor themselves like that is the censorship of today.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Of course, it also happens clearly with media outlets right
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: that are on board with the Trump administration and social
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: media firms with their algorithms like we looked at in
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: the last episode. Clearly all of that. But I think
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: people need to like understand that when we talk about censorship,
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: it is this is not your grandmother's, you know, redbaiting censorship.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: This is the censorship of today. Along with that censorship
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: comes the gutting of access and the rolling back of transparency.
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: And this is kind of the direction I want to
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: go into right now, because this is something that I
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: know journalists are seeing, particularly in Washington, and that we've
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: seen clearly around the Pentagon.
• 51:15
  Speaker 7: The one institution that you win the Nobel Peace Prize
• 51:19
  Speaker 7: every single year is the United States military, because we
• 51:22
  Speaker 7: are the guaranteur of the safety and security not just
• 51:25
  Speaker 7: of our country, but of a lot of people in
• 51:27
  Speaker 7: this world. Last question, yes, sir.
• 51:29
  Speaker 10: Thank you.
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: Recently, coverage around the Department of Defense and the Iran
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: War has also been increasingly difficult.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Katherine Jacobson, who I spoke with the Committee to Protect Journalists.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: So the Pentagon budget is over one trillion dollars a year,
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: and how is that actually being spent?
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: She asks, I just want to remind everyone that those
• 51:54
  Speaker 6: are American tax payer dollars that are being spent on policy.
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: There is little oversight too. Journalists are not able to
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: have the kind of access that they should have to
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: go in and ask pointed questions. Right when you restrict access,
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: journalists are kind of on their back heels, unsure of
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: which questions help how much they can press that type
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: of thing right, which again is something that is very
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: difficult to measure and quantify via data. But I think
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: that's what makes it so incredibly both effective and problematic.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: Something positive amid all of this that I want to
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: take us to. October fifteenth, twenty twenty five.
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: Doubles of reporters walked out of the Pentagon after refusing
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: to agree to the new rules set by the Trump administration,
• 52:50
  Speaker 6: almost all of us.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: It came following Defense Secretary Pete Hegset's roll out of
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: new media policies requiring reporters to get Pentagon approval before
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: publishing any information. And you know, I don't know this.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: This action by journalists, both on the right and the
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: left was pretty incredible. In videos, you see them like
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: walking through hallways and out the front door. They turned
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: in their badges and they got all their things in
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: boxes and it was you know, I feel like this
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: moment is important because press were all standing together. There
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: was only one news outlet, in fact, the conservative One
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: America News Network, which agreed to sign on to the
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: new government restrictions. Catherine Jacobson called this all really heartening.
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: You know what, that is a really good sign. And
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: I was also pleased to see that there were let's
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: say conservative or a centrist news outlets that walked out.
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: And that's so important because you know, sometimes I you know,
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: tease folks who I know are access reporters. You know
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: that they have to play night in order to get
• 54:01
  Speaker 4: the interview. That's just one of the things. You can't
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: be too critical. You have to be careful in the
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: way you frame your criticism in order to ensure that
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: you get a chance to interview that person again, or
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: to ever walk into that building again. So we tease
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: access reporters a little bit, but it's important and for
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: them to walk out together united is incredibly heartening because
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: I remember when AP was originally kicked out for not
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: wanting to call the Gulf of Mexico Golf of America,
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: and they said, well, that's not how it is on
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: the map. And I wanted everyone to stand up and
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: walk out with AP, because AP is just as much
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: of you know, a straight shooter. This is what came
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: across the wire news as you can hope for, and
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: to say, why couldn't you guys ban behind AP? I
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: was disappointed. Then I'm happy to see this now.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: Totally now, of course, what was it the week after
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: is when the Pentagon named a new press corps including
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: dozens of journalists, influencers, kind of far right media outlets,
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theories. And then on June first of this year,
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just announced that the Pentagon Press
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Office has now been classified and is off limits to press.
• 55:10
  Speaker 15: The Pentagon has banned journalists from its press office, saying
• 55:13
  Speaker 15: it is now a classified space. A spokesman said it
• 55:16
  Speaker 15: had been redesignated as a sensitive compartmented Information facility because
• 55:22
  Speaker 15: Pete Hesget's speech writers were now sharing the room last year.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, it's like, it's crazy when a press office.
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: Is off limits to press is now.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: Off limits, it is upset you can no longer come in.
• 55:36
  Speaker 6: Is both illogical, absurd, and feels a bit like we've
• 55:40
  Speaker 6: crossed into a different reality. Right, what is a press
• 55:43
  Speaker 6: room if journalists are unable to enter it?
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: I wanted to bring in somebody here to that also
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: gives I think this really important analysis and prospective for
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: this moment. His name is Mickey Austroker, and he worked
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: for years as a photo journalist for decades.
• 56:07
  Speaker 9: In fact, I am the general counsel of the National
• 56:10
  Speaker 9: Press Photographers Association.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: That's a group that's been around since just after World
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: War Two. They advocate for visual journalists. I am a
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: proud member of the organization. I should probably also say,
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: and he has just been dealing with so much.
• 56:26
  Speaker 9: What we're you know, we're seeing is officers using excessive force,
• 56:33
  Speaker 9: an unnecessary force against journalists. We're seeing journalists arrested and
• 56:39
  Speaker 9: detained and held.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: But also I asked him what he's been hearing from
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: his the members of his organization about the attacks, Like,
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: have they been contacting him?
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 56:51
  Speaker 9: I mean when I say I hear from them every
• 56:53
  Speaker 9: single day, I hear from them almost every single hour,
• 56:58
  Speaker 9: and that includes night in particular.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: It was earlier this month when we spoke. It was
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: when protests were kind of popping off at the ICE
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: headquarters in New Jersey at the Laney Hall.
• 57:09
  Speaker 8: DHS is coming out swinging to defend their ice operations
• 57:12
  Speaker 8: at a facility that's become a flashpoint for protests.
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: You know, we're talking about the Laney Hall in Newark.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: You mentioned two people that were jailed for twenty four hours.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: They were not allowed to communicate with anyone on the outside,
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: and he spent most of the night trying to get
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: them out of jail.
• 57:30
  Speaker 9: Again, unprecedented, illegal, improper. I mean, all the words I
• 57:36
  Speaker 9: could think of that just make me have to replace
• 57:41
  Speaker 9: the little sign on my desk that says bang head
• 57:44
  Speaker 9: here very frequently.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: Could you ever have imagined the situation in the past,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: now I couldn't.
• 57:54
  Speaker 9: I mean, unfortunately, what we're seeing is right out of
• 58:00
  Speaker 9: the playbook in those countries where we don't have democracy,
• 58:07
  Speaker 9: where there is no constitution in the way that we
• 58:10
  Speaker 9: know it, and certainly not a First Amendment.
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: And in fact, he said it's far worse than any
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: previous administration.
• 58:19
  Speaker 9: It's not that these other administrations were perfect, but this
• 58:24
  Speaker 9: is just beyond the pale. The question for me is,
• 58:29
  Speaker 9: at some point this is going to stop, But then
• 58:32
  Speaker 9: what's going to be left and how do we come
• 58:34
  Speaker 9: back from it?
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: That's the most important question when you look back in history.
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: Let's just grab nine to eleven, right, And then there
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: were all these things that were put in place to
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: protect the American people's surveillance, privacy breached in ways that
• 58:54
  Speaker 4: previously we would have never allowed. But in order to
• 58:57
  Speaker 4: protect us, these breaches had to take place. Right, This
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: new access to every part of our lives being put
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: on lists, right, that had to take place. So after that,
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: did these things go away? Did these ways of being
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: able to access someone's phone, putting people on terrorism lists?
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: Did it go away? No, it did not get rolled back.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: And that's the thing. Once you let this start, once
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: you let the erosion of freedom start, it is so
• 59:26
  Speaker 4: difficult to try to push that ball back up the hill.
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: It's nearly impossible. Once a government takes away one of
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: your rights, you have to fight like hell to get
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: it back.
• 59:40
  Speaker 9: Unfortunately, the word unprecedented has even lost its meaning because
• 59:47
  Speaker 9: every day there's something that's unprecedented. I mean, I think
• 59:52
  Speaker 9: they need to reinvent a new word for what we're seeing.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: He said. A The one thing is that he feels
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: like he's in a game of whack a mole where
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: they're just trying to put out the fires, just to
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: do everything they possibly can. And the only entity that
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: they can try and go to to stop the fires
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: are the courts. But even that has been largely taken over, right,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, forget the Supreme Court, and so the checks
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: and balances on our system historically have been eroded. And
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: one of the things he said which really got me
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: thinking is we talks about you know, when our forefathers
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: sat down, they drafted the Constitution, they drafted the Bill
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: of Rights.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 9: They were trying to anticipate everything so that there would
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 9: never be a monor. Yes, there would never be one
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 9: person that could control everything, and I think that's unfortunately
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 9: being threatened every single day.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: The founding Fathers did not make the First Amendment the
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: First Amendment because they loved journalists, okay. They did it
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: because they were in great fear of power, and in
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: particular tyrannical power, Okay, And they knew that journalism press
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: freedom was one of the most important ways that you
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: can ensure that tyranny can't take hold. And as a reporter,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: I just have to say, the question that always comes
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: to me is who benefits Who benefits when reporters are silenced.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: Who benefits when an investigation is never started? Who benefits
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: when a reporter is seen to be publicly injured and
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: taken away? Who is actually benefiting while this is happening.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: That's right, That's right, Tay. I want to close with
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: some thoughts from some of the people I've been speaking
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: with for this episode, and this is a perfect segue
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: what you've just been speaking about to Mickey Oustroicher from
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: the National Press Photographer's Association, and he, you know, basically says,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: it's not just the administration, it's the media landscape.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 9: The Washington Post has no photo staff anymore. They got
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 9: rid of everybody.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: A media consolidation ownership, then taking a knee to the
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: government and doing whatever they.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 9: Want, you know, dismantling, almost murdering, executing, or the words
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 9: I've seen in the last two days, sixty minutes, which
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 9: you know, was again one of the last bastions of
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 9: great journalism.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: You know. I asked him if he's ever seen a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: moment like this in his lifetime.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 9: No, I haven't seen it in my life. In my lifetime.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 9: I can only imagine, you know, Walter Cronkite rolling over
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 9: in their graves seeing this happen, but you know, being
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 9: called enemy of the state things like that. It's a
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 9: clear and present danger to democracy.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Catherine Jacobson, you know, talked about how this government campaigned
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: on supporting free speech and now they're absolutely co opting
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: the language of democracy and contorting.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: It, contorting it, distorting it into something that is unrecognizable.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 6: And I would argue bends more toward speech control and
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 6: the authoritarian than anything that I would argue the founding
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 6: fathers intended to have an American democracy.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Steiner and I have talked about this often. It is
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: the gutting of free speech in the name of free speech.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah, just I think it's so important for Americans to
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 6: understand that this sense of us exceptionalism is part of
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 6: how we got here, right, thinking that these things could
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: never happen here, and a total failure of imagination of
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 6: just how bad things could get.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, that's exactly what I was thinking. That's exactly what
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: I was thinking when you said, when you you said
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: you had asked him, have you ever envisioned this happening?
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: Have you ever seen anything like this happening? And my
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: thought was, oh, well, that happens in the Philippines under
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: the Duerte regime, and so Maria Russa has to flee,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: or so that's not going to happen in the United States,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: or you know, thinking of Masha Guessim from from Russia
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: essentially saying you all should be in hysterics right now.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: You should be screaming the sky is falling. I know
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: what authoritarianism looks like. I know what fascism looks like.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: It's on its way, kid, you need to prepare. And
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: thinking about these reporters that you know I've looked up
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: to and listened to but thought it's not going to
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: happen here, and that sort of you know, naive confidence
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: that I had my country, and you would say, as
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: a reporter, surely you're a skeptic. Well, I'm a skeptic,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: but I also a skeptic with hope that because I've
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: always had the belief that our country will be able
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: to live up to its promise. And I can proudly
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: say that members of my family have fought for this
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: country to live up to its promise to provide life, liberty,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: and happiness to all of its people. So there's a
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: part of me that just didn't think it could happen here,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: but I've got to admit it. I've got to keep
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: my eyes open and I've got to keep doing what
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: I can to push back against it and support those
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: who are.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. Catherine mentioned something which got me
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: thinking as well. She said, you know, we are the
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: can in the coal mine. Journalists are the canary in
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: the coal mine for measuring the health and wellness of democracy.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: And what we're seeing here that this democracy needs some attention,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: It has some issues.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 6: And I think we all need to collectively ask is
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 6: this the path that we want to go down? Do
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: we want a less free press? Do we want our
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 6: tax dollars to be spent without any sort of accountability?
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 6: Do we want to feel that something is changing in
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: our communities and we can't quite place our fingers on
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 6: it because there are no local reporters who can cover it,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 6: And that those are the conversations that we need to
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 6: be having as a country now.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: Nick Stern, you know the report of the photojournalist why
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: I spoke with at the top. He's the one who
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: had the flash bang embedded into his leg. I asked him,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: on a scale of zero to ten, what is the
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: state of press freedom in the United States for him right.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: Now, I would give it about three or four. I
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 3: think it's pretty low. You know, it's certainly not one
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: or two. We can still get out of the house,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: we can still be there, we can still be there
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: until they don't want us there. That seems to be
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: the procedure that's going on here. You can remain here
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: whilst we want you here.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: He said. Unfortunately, the laws don't even matter here anymore.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: And this is important because I asked him about do
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: you think things are going to get worse, the crackdown
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: will increase, and he said, look, they're just going to
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: keep doing what they're doing, but doesn't matter what the
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: law is. And there's almost no accountability. Yes, and this
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: is something that many of the people who have spoken
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: with have brought up. Federal agents, whether it's through ICE
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: or National Guard, there's almost no means of holding people accountable,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: particularly ICE agents who literally they you know, they don't
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: have name tags, they have masks on, so we can't
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: even see who they are. That's done as a scare tactic.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: It's done as a terror tactic, and it's to ensure
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: that there will be no repercussions for whatever they do.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: And I think these tactics are used as a terror
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: tactic against members of the public and the media as well.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: But it also prevents accountability. If you cannot identify the
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: officer that beats you, that brutalized you, that violated your
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: constitutional rights, I think you're less likely to file a
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: complaint and have some positive outcome from it. So I
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: think it's all part of a definite tactic by them.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: I always say, you know, I don't expect any special
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: treatment other than those that are written to the Constitution,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: state law, et cetera, et cetera. But as journalists, if
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: we are not out there, you do not have eyes
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: and ears knowing what's going on. The members of the public,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: the general public, do not know what what's happening. And
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: let's face it, here in Los Angeles, we are constantly
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: given press releases press information from law enforcement which is
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: later deemed to be absolutely incorrect. So we as journalists
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: need to be out there.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: Like you said, the journalists are the canary and the
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: coal mine. I guess the one thing we have on
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: our side is that we can make sure people are
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: seeing what's happening to us, and hopefully people are going
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: to step forward and realize if their rights are being violated,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: mine are next. And who's going to speak out for
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 4: me when that journalist has gone. That's a journalist I
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 4: would have turned to to say I experienced police misconduct
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: or they took away my neighbor. And that journalist is
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: gone now, and they're going to be sitting there saying
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: I don't feel comfortable going to that protest now, I
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: don't feel comfortable signing that petition. Now they're going to
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: be scared them with good reasons. So I really hope
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: we can turn this around. I did like the little
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: bit of hope you gave. I'm going to try to
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: hold on to that.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: Awesome Teya, amazing, Thank you so much. This is so fantastic.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: Oh well, it was wonderful talking with you, and I
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: think this is such an important conversation, So thank you
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: for having me be a part of it.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: That is all for now, Thank you so much for listening.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: In the next episode, we take a step back and
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: go to the streets, ask one simple but very complicated question,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: what actually is free speech?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 16: What I really do think? Sincerely? Having now had many
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 16: conversations with many different audiences about what do people think
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 16: free speech means? What does it mean to them? Overwhelmingly,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 16: what I realize is that it's because there's a kind
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 16: of narcotic effect of those words. People are kind of
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 16: lulled into a sense of don't ask me about the details.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 16: I know what free speech is, and it's because we
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 16: think we know it so well that we don't know
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 16: anything about it.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: If you enjoyed today's podcast and you like this series,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: please do us a favor. Go to your podcasting app
• 1:11:11
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• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: tell a friend about it and leave us a comment
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: or a review. It really helps to spread the word
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: about the show and the state of free speech in
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: the United States today, folks. If you'd like to find
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: out more about the Battle for Free Speech and my
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: work on other podcasts, you can find me at patreon
• 1:11:30
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• 1:11:33
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  Speaker 2: to do this important work folks. Also, we are now
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: on Blue Sky. Just search for the Battle for Free Speech.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: There I'll be posting about everything having to do with
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: the latest on free speech and censorship today plus this show.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: You can find link. Thanks to all the people who
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: I spoke with today in the show notes, A huge
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: thanks and shout out to Tea Graham for joining me
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: in this episode today. Also, please make sure to sign
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• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: The Battle for Free Speech is a production of the
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: Real News. Thanks for listening, See you next time.