In times of conflict, journalists face threats, even in our own community

Our staff photographers have hoisted their cameras at thousands of sporting events. Maybe tens of thousands. Maybe more. Sometimes there are moments of triumph. Often there are noisy fans. But after so many games, our staffers know what to expect.

Photographer Patrick Breen didn’t expect what he heard on Nov. 22 at a youth baseball game in Mesa. 

“Pedophile,” one parent shouted at him.

Fake news, a woman jeered. From the folding chairs at Gene Autry Park, they hurled insults, as children played on the grass a few yards away.

Then came the overt threat. A father in the stands threatened Patrick: I’ll kick your ass.

Breen wasn't just shooting kids' sports

To be clear, Patrick wasn’t solely shooting pictures of kids’ sports. He was documenting how the community was handling youth sports season in a pandemic era. We published that story on Nov. 24, airing concerns from health experts about the surge in coronavirus cases, and balancing those against the precautions youth league organizers say they put in place. Some parents felt “unfairly targeted” by media attention, including the television crews that arrived, tournament director Eric Bell told us. 

But all that nuance was lost in the exchange with Patrick: Pedophile. Fake news.

He packed up his photo equipment and left the game, feeling defeated by the community he loves to cover. He knows – we all know – that the community feels on edge now. He was feeling it too.

A bit later, he picked up his phone and did what he so often does from the field, summarizing his day’s work in a tweet. But this time he wrote: “I’m shaking. More because I just want people to understand that I’m not their enemy. I love my community. I love telling their story through pictures.” 

We are nation on edge

Our country is on edge over a pandemic and an election. There has been little reckoning after a summer of protests about racism, injustice and the shooting and choking deaths of Black men and women by police.

Instead of reckoning, it seems there’s only more fighting and arguing, about mask mandates and vote counts.

Throughout it, though, journalism has served to preserve the record of it all.

Our photographers and reporters have covered protests down Jefferson Street and outside the Arizona State Capitol. They’ve witnessed deathly quiet emergency rooms and intensely crowded polling places.

They’ve logged the deaths. They’ve scrutinized the ballot counts.

This year, Arizona Republic journalists have written about the courage of nurses on a COVID-19 ward, the fight against unjust eviction by a single mother of four, the pain of a mother whose son and husband died at the hands of police and the newfound patriotism of a 65-year-old first-time voter.

They’ve also brought you stories that generated controversy and push-back, as they’ve revealed hard truths about our communities: How Phoenix police deploy physical violence more frequently against people of color. How more than a thousand people in Prescott are so worried about the strains of racism they see in their community that they take out newspaper ads to ask for it to stop.

When we report, some push back

When we tell these stories, some people push back.

You won’t read much coverage about threats to journalists in the U.S., but they are on the rise.

News organizations have been tracking these threats in other countries, where press freedom isn’t Constitutional bedrock, and they track them here too.

So far in 2020, 278 journalists have been attacked in the U.S., 100 journalists have been arrested and 74 have had their equipment damaged, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a joint project of more than two dozen organizations including News Leaders Association, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

When we go into the community, in a pandemic, we take another kind of risk, and we know we’re not alone. We’ve told the stories of people who face that health risk to do their duty: Grocery store clerks and restaurant servers, police officers and firefighters, nurses and doctors, teachers and bus drivers. All of us are balancing work and life, health and safety.

And in so many places, we’re feeling on edge, and sometimes defeated.

We've seen multiple threats this year

The threats and intimidation, though they’ve stretched throughout journalism’s history, have caught fire in this season of fighting and arguing.

• On Nov. 8, reporter BrieAnna Frank was covering protests outside the Maricopa County Election Department when a man waved her over: “You are the scum of the earth. You are the enemy of the people. You’re on the wrong side of history.” They spoke through a chain-link fence officials had erected because of death threats against reporters.
• On Nov. 5, a post to Twitter from a bogus account superimposed a photo of columnist Elvia Diaz over the words “you might as well put a gun to my head.” Twitter removed the photo after complaints.
• On Nov. 1, photographer Michael Chow posted a picture of riot gear and cameras on Twitter – equipment we procured to help protect journalists, if necessary, while they do their jobs. One reply urged people to accost him and steal his equipment.
• In August, at the dueling “Back the Blue” and “Black Lives Matter” protests in Gilbert, one side yelled “fake news” to photographer David Wallace and the other side cussed at him.
• On May 6, Republic columnist Laurie Roberts received an email calling her “scum ...  Anti american parasite and a disgrace to all.”
• On Jan. 25, a member of the neo-Nazi “Atomwaffen Division” targeted the Arizona Association of Black Journalists, whose leadership includes Republic reporter Elizabeth Montgomery. The man pleaded guilty to charges related to a plot to threaten journalists. On the window at the home of the editor for Arizona Jewish Life he glued a poster with the words “Your Actions Have Consequences,” and “You have been visited by your local Nazis.”

This is but a sampling.

'Hostile climate' for reporters is growing

A little over a year ago, Reporters Without Borders for the first time rated the United States “problematic” for “an increasingly hostile climate” for journalists. The atmosphere goes beyond anything President Donald Trump has said, authors of the group’s World Press Freedom Index concluded.

“Never before have US journalists been subjected to so many death threats or turned so often to private security firms for protection,” they noted. “Hatred of the media is now such that a man walked into the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland, in June 2018 and opened fire, killing four journalists and one other member of the newspaper’s staff. The gunman had repeatedly expressed his hatred for the paper on social networks before ultimately acting on his words.”

It's enough to leave anyone feeling on edge, defeated.

Yet, somehow, there’s another part of journalism that never fails to emerge. Where there is controversy and anger, there may also be solutions, or at least hope.

Before Patrick headed home from the baseball game, one other parent encouraged him to keep taking photographs. Soldier on.

By the time he got home, his tweet was already making the rounds. Journalists across the country were rising in support.

“We’ve got your back,” Brendan Keefe, chief investigator for an Atlanta

TV station, wrote to Patrick. “You MATTER. What you do matters. The answer to attacks on journalism is always more journalism. I’m so sorry to hear this, and yet I feel your pain.”

We will be here to serve the community

Some of them pointed out that Patrick’s tweet wasn’t the only one of his to go viral lately. He shot another picture you probably saw – the remarkable photo of DeAndre Hopkins’ game-winning catch for the Arizona Cardinals against the Buffalo Bills. That’s a photojournalist serving the community he loves.

The replies didn’t just come from fellow journalists. They came from readers, neighbors, everywhere. People who were sorry for what had happened. People who remembered the thrill of having their own photo in the paper from their own youth sports games, long ago.

The social media manager for the city of Mesa apologized for the parents. “We're very sorry to hear this happened. Hosting youth sports tournaments is a point of pride for the city of Mesa and we value the coverage by @azcentral and you, Pat. Thank you for your hard work to showcase these events.”

And the next day, just like his fellow Republic journalists, Patrick got up and headed out again, to cover the community he loves.

Greg Burton is executive editor of The Arizona Republic.