According to the US Press Freedom Tracker, a project of the Press Freedom Foundation, arrests and detentions of journalists in the United States increased sharply in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Tracker reports that journalists have been arrested or detained by police at least 48 times this year. This exceeds the number of arrests in the previous two years combined and is the third highest annual arrest and detention figure since the project began cataloging media outlets. However, 2020 remains the year with the highest number of arrests and detentions.
This year’s 48 arrests and detentions are also part of a larger list of “press freedom incidents” recorded by the tracker, including damage to equipment, seizure of equipment, and assaults.
While arrests typically rise in years of high protests, “this year’s increase was driven by protests against the Israel-Gaza war,” the tracker said.
Of the 48 total arrests and detentions, the majority were related to these types of demonstrations, with the largest number of journalist detentions this year occurring at a protest on Columbia University’s Manhattan campus.
The report also details the story of freelance reporter Loni Jacobson, whose experiences in late 2023 served as a harbinger of press freedom incidents to occur in 2024. Jacobson was assigned to cover pro-Palestinian protests for the New York Daily News. On December 31, 2023, police told her to leave because she did not have a city-issued press credential. She said she accidentally bumped into a police officer and was arrested. She was detained overnight at the police station, but was released after charges including disorderly conduct were dropped.
Even five arrests that the tracker deemed “election-related” occurred at protests focused “at least in part, if not entirely,” on the Israel-Gaza war. Three of the election-related arrests occurred during protests around the Democratic National Convention in August.
One police force in particular is responsible for this year’s crackdown. Almost 50% of journalist arrests this year were by the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Although many of those detained had charges quickly dropped, the tracker notes that the NYPD’s use of “catch-and-release” tactics particularly concerned press freedom advocates.
Two photojournalists, Josh Pacheco and Olga Federova, have been detained four times this year while filming protests in both New York City and Chicago. While documenting police clearing a student encampment at Manhattan’s Fashion Institute of Technology, the two were “assaulted, arrested, and had their equipment damaged.” However, they were released the next day and told that their arrests were no longer valid.
“While we are glad that common sense has prevailed and the NYPD has not charged these two photographers with any crime, we are grateful that they have perfected ‘catch and release’ into an art form. We are very concerned that they are attempting to do so,” said General Counsel Mickey Osterreicher. the National Press Photographers Association told Tracker.
“The fact that they took two photojournalists off the street and prevented them from making any more images or sending the images they already had on matters of extreme social concern is extremely worrying. It should be done,” he said.
In addition to reporting on protests, the tracker said 2024 continued to see “criminal charges against journalists for standard journalistic practices.” For example, an investigative journalist in Los Angeles was detained in October after receiving repeated threats of arrest while attempting to cover the city’s homeless camp clearance, but was released without charge.
