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Friends of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker:
Welcome back to your monthly newsletter around press freedom violations in the United States. Find archived editions here ([link removed]) .

Each month, this newsletter opens with a snapshot of categories from our home page. Above shows what we’ve collected across four of our categories so far this year.


** 2021 Arrest Report
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Tracker reporter Kio Herrera has pulled together an analysis of an entire year’s worth of arrests and detainments of journalists for our 2021 arrest report:

2020 was an unprecedented year for arrests of journalists, and many expected the number to drop to normal levels in 2021, Instead, the 56 journalists arrested or detained documented this year nearly equals the total number of journalists arrested in 2017 ([link removed]) , 2018 ([link removed]) and 2019 ([link removed]) — combined.

Read: More than 50 journalists arrested or detained while on the job in the U.S in 2021 ([link removed])

I highly suggest you read the report to understand the trends — protests and kettles feature heavily again in 2021 — and take a look at what’s ahead for the seven journalists still facing charges ([link removed]) .
And ICYMI last year, our 2020 arrest report ([link removed]) was published while we were still working to document the year’s incredible backlog. We have since captured 142 arrests or detainments of journalists in 2020 ([link removed]) .
Journalists arrested or detained across the U.S. in 2021. For the interactive version, and an in-depth look at the year, read the report ([link removed]) .


** Court TV
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I’m not a court reporter, but like many of us, I’ve been watching a seemingly endless parade of trials. So much of what makes front-page news relates to the work we do here at the Tracker.

I followed the Kenosha, Wisconsin, trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, until Nov. 19, when he was acquitted ([link removed]) of first-degree intentional homicide and four other felony charges for killing two men and wounding a third in August 2020.

At that time, Kenosha was the site of heightened Black Lives Matter and anti-police brutality protests after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black resident, during a summer of ongoing civil unrest that followed the May death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white police officer in Minnesota.

In response to the jury verdict, protests broke out or were planned in multiple cities across the United States, including Kenosha, Dallas, Chicago, New York and Portland. The Tracker documented three journalists assaulted ([link removed]) while covering the Rittenhouse verdict protests, all in Portland.

I followed the great reporting by KCUR ([link removed]) and The Kansas City Star ([link removed]) around the exoneration of Kevin Strickland, a Black man, of a triple homicide conviction after 43 years in a Missouri jail. I followed as a former KC journalist, because this man has been jailed the entirety of my life and because some of the evidence that overturned his conviction — in addition to an eyewitness recantation and his insistence of innocence for more than four decades — brought home for me the importance of diverse representation ([link removed]) in the judicial system.

The same day Strickland went free in the Midwest — Nov. 23 — a Georgia jury began deliberations in the case of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man shot to death in February 2020. On the second day of deliberations, the jury found three men, all white, guilty of murder and other charges. Arbery’s death, and the graphic video that accompanied it, helped fuel widespread demonstrations and unrest ([link removed]) across the country in the spring and summer of 2020.

From 2020 into 2021, the Tracker documented more than 1000 incidents — including more than 600 assaults ([link removed]) and 150 arrests ([link removed]) — of journalists while reporting from Black Lives Matter protests across the country.

Also on the 23rd, a jury in Charlottesville, Virginia, found the organizers of a white nationalist rally in 2017, Unite the Right, partially responsible for the violence ([link removed]) that occurred there, including the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who died when a car rammed into a group of counterprotesters.
Across those several days in August 2017, the Tracker documented four journalists assaulted ([link removed]) while covering the marches in Charlottesville and Richmond.


** Gratitude and Giving
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The end of November is here. There is more than one day on which we give thanks, and I really am grateful for so much, not the least of which is the privilege of this position. As you contemplate your end-of-year charitable givings, please consider a donation to the Tracker ([link removed]) . Your support makes this work possible.

Best,
Kirstin McCudden
Managing Editor, U.S. Press Freedom Tracker
[link removed]
[link removed]

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