COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW—New York media outlets are being proactive about defending their rights as they anticipate the deployment of federal law enforcement.
Last month Carroll Bogert, the newly named chief executive of The City, a nonprofit digital news site that covers New York, sent a letter to the local field directors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. “We seek to discuss establishing clear, well-recognized best practices for law-enforcement interactions with journalists during fast-moving or sensitive operations,” she wrote. Bogert raised concerns about how journalists had been treated across the country, as “agents and journalists have recently ended up in conflicts that risk both the safety and work of your agents and our journalists”—consider the scenes in Chicago, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. She proposed a meeting to clarify federal policies, in the likely event that Donald Trump deployed more federal officers to New York. The letter was cosigned by eight news organizations, including the New York Times, New York magazine, and Documented, a media nonprofit that covers the immigrant community.
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