Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recorded 44 physical attacks on journalists in North America. Alexandra Ellerbeck, the CPJ’s North America Program Coordinator, says that “the vast majority” of these attacks occurred during protests. Ellerbeck sees it as part of a sea change in the relationship between political activists and the press in the digital media era.
“You used to be seen as neutral. You used to be seen as useful, because protesters were trying to get their message out. You used to be given some protection,” Ellerbeck says. “Now people can get their own message out through their own platforms. There’s less of an incentive to befriend the media. Journalists can be seen as a threat to protesters’ ability to control narratives,” she says.
Ellerbeck also cites the “trickle-down effect” of rhetorical attacks on the media by politicians including Trump. She says that when CPJ counted Trump’s Twitter attacks on the media, they found more than 1,000 between his campaign announcement and January 2018. “There’s been a constant barrage of conspiracy-mongering and hate-mongering towards the press” by the president, Ellerbeck says. She says that harassment of journalists stepped up during Trump’s campaign, peaking just before the election, and has returned in waves ever since.[The Guardian: Doxxing, Assault, Death threats: The New Dangers Facing US Journalists Covering Extremism]
