Category: Access & Censorship

A new Photo Bill of Rights, inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic and the current uprising against police brutality, has caused fissures in the American photojournalism community and raised an important question about “informed consent” in photographing protesters.

This is a rolling list of assaults against photojournalists by police and protestors covering the George Floyd protests around the country. Some of the data is pulled from the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s list. This list does not include detainment without assault.

For his entire administration, Trump has continually bashed the media — calling it “lamestream” and “fake news” and, worse of all, “the enemy of the people.” Perhaps then it should come as no surprise that the media was a target for violence and attacks all over the nation during its coverage of the protests.

On any given day, any one of the attacks that I mention in this column would be newsworthy. The fact that this is only a sampling of the many attacks on journalists this weekend underscores the dangers that they are willing to face to document an outpouring of anger, frustration and, in some cases, senseless opportunistic violence.

The dawn of a pandemic—as seen through the news and social media posts that vanished from China’s internet.

Hospitals are blocking journalists from documenting what it’s like inside their walls and the shortages of ventilators and other supplies, so we rely on social media and interviews with doctors. But seeing is believing, the old saying goes. It is true in war, it is true in disasters, and this is both a war and a disaster.

“I needed to ensure that I didn’t go unnoticed”: Photojournalist Shahidul Alam on his new book and notorious 101-day incarceration