Protests in America have been fairly constant in the past year. Per the Crowd Counting Consortium, the number rose from 4,588 in 2017 (Trump’s first year in office) to 10,700 in 2025 (the President’s first year of his second term). From No Kings marches to protests against ICE, Americans have taken to the streets to voice their opposition to the administration’s policies.
That’s kept journalists busy and, in some cases, put them in danger.
Recently, I talked to Joel Simon, director of the Journalism Protection Initiative at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and former executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists about the challenge of doing our jobs in risky environments.
Here’s a lightly edited transcript of our conversation — plus bonus advice from working journalists about how to stay safe during protests.
How is today’s climate for journalists covering protests different from years’ past?
At the beginning of my career around the late 1980s, there was some massive protest in Mexico City. There must have been several hundred thousand people there. I was in the back, and I was trying to hear what was happening on the stage, so I introduced myself as a freelance journalist. I think I was writing for Pacific News Service, which is something that nobody had heard of in Mexico and very few people had heard of in the U.S., but the protesters still pushed me to the stage because they wanted me there.
This was how they responded to journalists because the whole reason you have a protest is to use the media to bring your demands or concerns to a national or global audience, and that is what kept journalists safe.
The risk environment changed when protesters’ perception of the value of having journalists there changed. We saw this internationally in places like Brazil and Turkey. Journalists covering those protests were attacked by the protesters who felt their perspective wasn’t being fairly presented by the media, and that they had other channels of communicating. Plus, the consequences of having a journalist injured by law enforcement at a protest were just not that great.
At the same time, the same dynamic has played out in the U.S., and that has dovetailed with a couple of other things. First, especially in local communities, a lot of journalists used to have relationships with law enforcement. This was good and bad. It was bad in the sense that some of the coverage reflected the perspective of law enforcement rather than the communities. But from a practical view, if you’re covering a protest and the cops know you and you know the cops, it’s a give and take. But those relationships have broken down as local media have declined.
How has the rise of citizen-journalists affected law enforcement’s treatment of reporters on the scene?
Then you have more people who are engaging in journalism in more informal ways. They don’t necessarily have a press badge and aren’t attached to a specific media outlet; they’re out there with their phones. The police think, “Who’s a journalist and who’s not? I don’t know. I don’t know these people anyway, and some of them are documenting the protests in very aggressive ways.”
This is happening now in Minneapolis, but the social justice protests that erupted nationwide following the murder of George Floyd were targeting law enforcement. And so, law enforcement felt scrutinized and had a very confrontational posture towards journalists.
During those protests, hundreds of journalists across the country faced some sort of repressive action. Hundreds more suffered physical violence. That dynamic has accelerated, and basically every time we have protests now there’s some incident involving journalists. So it’s become infinitely more dangerous and difficult to cover protests.
Advice from Matt Capon
Capon is a freelance video journalist and lecturer at City St. George’s at the University of London
“Before heading into any protest, get a handle on policing plans and expectations for any form of public disorder that could emerge. Sometimes this can take the form of tracking previous protests and similar responses from local authorities. Most public gatherings that become protests often follow the same rhythm when it comes to action and agenda, which makes it easier to plan — including when to call it a day and head home.
“When you arrive on the scene, walk the floor and look for the movement of protesters versus the movement of police and local authorities. My immediate ‘tells’ [of impending risk] are when protesters start masking up or when police clip their helmets. This is where you want to have planned an exit strategy. Getting into a protest is easy, but getting out? That can be hard.
“Travel light and blend in where you can. This means making sure you’ve got a smartphone loaded up with the core apps to record and file. I make sure the agencies I’m working with are tracking my social accounts too. It also helps having at least one power bank on you should the protest roll on into the evening. Make sure to have your press accreditation with you at all times, too.
“If you’re interviewing people and capturing voices, reassure them that you’re there to report. You’re not picking sides, you’re there to tell the story. Get there early and build trust with people before things may or may not escalate. Above all else, don’t panic and keep calm.”
Given that hostile environment, what practical advice do you offer journalists?
You have to prepare. You can call it a risk assessment, but it’s really pre-reporting. Understand who’s there, what they’re protesting, what their dynamics are likely to be, what the posture of law enforcement is going to be. Do you have the contact information of whoever’s organizing it? Do you have some sort of law enforcement contact?
Ideally you’re out there as part of a team or with a colleague or buddy. Do you have an emergency plan? Do you know what to do if you’re arrested? Do you know a little bit about your rights? Have you done an analysis of what protective gear you might need and do you know how to use it? Do you have a good relationship with an editor who knows where you are and some basic plan if there’s an issue?
Have you thought about your information security? What if your phone is confiscated? We often tell people to deactivate facial recognition because if law enforcement gets access to your phone, you don’t want them to hold the phone up to your face and access your information.
There are so many comprehensive checklists of how to cover protests safely, but my message here is to take even a half hour to really understand the environment in which you’re going to be working and take the necessary precautions. If you do that, it increases your safety exponentially.
Advice from Michelle Chabin
Chabin is an American journalist in Israel who has covered protests for decades
“Try to stay on the periphery of a protest, if at all possible. If a protest turns violent, you want to be able to exit the area quickly. This can save your life. It has saved mine.
“If you need to take photos or footage, try to minimize your exposure. And always make a conscious effort to hear and see what’s around you. Have the protesters gotten rowdy? Are security forces drawing closer? Have you prepared for the possibility that the police might use tear gas? Always keep an ‘escape route’ in your head.
“While I know this sounds dramatic, protests can be dangerous. Most aren’t, but be prepared. Know that what you are doing is important because you are sharing words and images that otherwise would not be shared. At the same time, I feel that safety — mine and others — outweighs even the best story or camera angle. By staying safe, you can continue to do what you do best: inform the public.”
Do you have any suggestions on how to approach the reporting part of covering protests?
You should have, at a minimum, a basic understanding of your rights and what to do if you encounter law enforcement, particularly how to de-escalate and how to communicate.
If you’re focused on antagonizing the police rather than documenting what’s happening, you’re veering into the realm of activism. You really need to ensure that you’re able to do your work. If you’re arrested, you’re not going to get the story.
You might think about where you can position yourself so you can observe and not be in the middle. Do you have a way of retreating if something that you’re reporting on escalates?
And again, having a team really increases your safety because when you’re immersed in the reporting process, you may lose your situational awareness. So with a team, you could take turns — one person is observing and understanding what’s happening and making sure that the environment remains manageable [for the person who’s reporting].
Do you find certain personality types are better suited for this type of work?
You have to be genuinely interested in what people think, including people you might not agree with. You have to be committed to documenting the reality to the best of your ability.
Whether you’re a journalist or an activist or a protester, you still have the same rights to record the police and what’s occurring, to engage with people in a public setting, to observe and document. What that means is that many people who are operating at the periphery of journalism may not understand or have access to the tools and strategies they need to operate with greater safety.
Why is it important for journalists to keep covering protests, despite the risks?
Protests are, in the context of the United States, the living embodiment of the First Amendment. The rights to peaceably assemble, to petition the government for redress and for the press to operate freely all intercept and reinforce one another during a protest. Those rights allow democracy to function, and every one of them is under tremendous pressure and threatened in some fundamental way.
Historically, there’s an intersection: People protest, journalists cover the protests, the protesters’ demands become known to the public, and the public changes its understanding of these issues. It’s not a dynamic that happens every time, but it has happened.
So there’s no question: The ability of journalists to document what’s happening is fundamental to the preservation of American democracy. It’s not a straight line, but that’s the reality. And so the ability of journalists to perform that work with some level of safety is critical.
