Over 400 attacks on press freedom in US under a month – but why?

Police have targeted journalists on live TV during the George Floyd protests. Dr. Courtney Radsch of the Committee to Protect Journalists talks about what's behind this development and what it could mean for the world.

DW: There have been over 400 cases of press freedom violations in the United States since late May, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). What do these violations look like? 

Dr. Courtney Radsch: We’ve been working closely with the US Press Freedom Tracker, which is doing all of the investigations and documentations. The Committee to Protect Journalists is a founding partner of the tracker and we have been investigating more than 400 incidents since the outbreak of the protests over racial injustice and police brutality on May 26.

Those incidents include arrests by police, assaults by police and protesters, the targeting of protesters with projectiles, stealing of equipment and a range of different attacks which we are documenting and making available on the US Press Freedom Tracker website.

One of those incidents involved a Deutsche Welle reporter named Stefan Simons. He was shot at with rubber bullets and threatened with arrest in Minneapolis several weeks ago. How typical is his experience based on your research?

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