For almost a century, American popular culture has perpetuated the idea that only journalists working in foreign countries could be in danger.
First published in June 2020.
When Americans think of journalists attacked, arrested or imprisoned while doing their job, they think of it happening in distant lands โ in places like Russia, Syria, Afghanistan, El Salvador and Mexico.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are so ingrained in the American consciousness, citizens may have been lulled into thinking that these acts of intimidation couldnโt possibly happen on American soil.
And then they did.
On May 29, police in Minnesota arrested a CNN journalist who was covering the Minneapolis protests, leading him and two crew members away in handcuffs.
This wasnโt a one-off.
- In Los Angeles, an officer shoved a photojournalist to the ground after she showed her credentials.
- Protesters attacked and chased a Fox News reporter near the White House.
- According to Los Angeles Times reporter Molly Hennessey-Fiske, she and roughly a dozen other members of the press had identified themselves to the Minnesota State Police, who nonetheless โfired tear gun canisters on us at point blank range.โ
- An officer aimed and fired a pepper ball at a Louisville reporter on live television.
A TV reporter and a photojournalist were shot with pepper balls while filming protests and local police in Louisville. https://t.co/3vYIwA9DDS
— Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) May 30, 2020
Between May 29 and May 31, there were more than 100 reported incidents of journalists being โinjured, assaulted or harassed by either protesters or police officers.โ
These reports are shocking and chilling, compounded by the fact that Americans rarely see this happen on American soil โ whether on the news, on fictional TV shows or in movies.
Iโve studied the image of the journalist in popular culture for more than 30 years, documenting how the public forms its impressions of journalism through movies, television and novels.
For almost a century, popular culture has perpetuated the notion that only journalists working in foreign countries were in danger. We saw this in World War II films like โBerlin Correspondentโ and โComrade X,โ in which foreign correspondents escaped brushes with death to inform the public.
Thereโs the journalist blown up while covering a nuclear submarine disaster in โThe Bedford Incident,โ and the photojournalist who commits suicide as Indonesian police close in on her in โThe Year of Living Dangerously.โ
In โUnder Fire,โ journalists are shot in Nicaragua by hostile troops, while in โSalvador,โ one photojournalist is killed while covering an aerial raid, and Salvadoran troops torture another.
Then there are the journalists who barely escape death but leave their sources behind to suffer at the hands of the Khmer Rouge in โThe Killing Fields.โ
Real-life examples of journalists killed around the world give credence to these images, and Americans such as Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and video reporter James Foley were killed while covering stories for the American news media in Pakistan and Syria, respectively.
In films set in America, journalists do find themselves in trouble. In โThe Turning Pointโ and โThe Parallax View,โ investigative reporters are killed, while in โThe Pelican Briefโ and โState of Playโ journalists narrowly escape death.
But these domestic journalists werenโt killed by law enforcement or the military but by sinister people in the government or as a result of business cabals or organized crime. Television, meanwhile, is saturated with images of cops as heroes.
American studies scholar Jerome de Groot has written about how novels, movies and television shows offer โpowerful models and paradigmsโ for understanding our shared past.
So it can be confusing and disturbing to see images that upend preconceived notions about American journalists โ that overseas, they might be exposed, but here in America, theyโll be protected by the law.
The illusion has been shattered. As Dan Shelley, executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association explained, the police โstarted deliberately attacking journalists who were clearly identifiable and identifying themselves as journalists. โฆ To be a journalist in the Twin Cities last night, particularly in Minneapolis, if you were just arrested, you were lucky.โ
Some have blamed President Donald Trumpโs broadsides against โfake newsโ and his rhetoric castigating the media as the โenemies of the people.โ Others say many media outlets have ceded their role as serious news gatherers in favor of stoking sensationalism and division for profit, which has led to plummeting trust.

And though Trump has been notably virulent in his attacks on the news media, past presidents โ including Barack Obama โ havenโt always been champions of freedom of the press. Like Trump, Obama wanted to control the narrative, and during his two terms he used the 1917 Espionage Act to crack down on journalists and their sources by prosecuting more leakers and whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined.
No matter the cause, I wonโt be surprised if the movies catch up to the current moment, and films start to feature besieged journalists on American soil.
Their biggest threat wonโt be a foreign power or a corporation or a mobster.
Itโll be their own government.๐ท

|
[This piece was originally published in The Conversation and re-published in PMP Magazine on 17 June 2020, with the authorโs consent. | The author writes in a personal capacity.]
