Jailing Journalists
A Justice Department policy change revives the threat to reporters’ notes, footage — and freedom.
A new memo from Attorney General Pam Bondi makes it easier to arrest journalists that don’t reveal their sources.
When Josh Wolf grabbed his video camera that night, he didn’t know he’d accidentally change journalism. He just wanted to film a local protest. A group of anarchists were planning to demonstrate that night, July 8, 2005, against the G-8 Summit. It didn’t matter that the leaders of eight of the world’s largest industrialized economies, including the United States, Russia, Germany, and Japan, were gathering 5,000 miles away in Edinburgh, Scotland. The California anarchists saw the Group of Eight as a capitalist cabal hellbent on controlling society. They were pissed. They wanted San Francisco and the world to know it.
Wolf was one of them. He was a blogger and activist. He wrote about political corruption and against the Iraq war. He posted videos on his website, The Revolution Will Be Televised, under the name “Insurgent.” And he planned to film the protest that night to document the continued fight against what he believed was an immoral government.
What he captured put him in jail for 226 days.
Oddly, the footage doesn’t show much. Twenty years later, the bits that Wolf recorded from that night—protesters gathering and eventually marching, cops in riot gear coming onto the scene, masked anarchists grabbing newspaper boxes and dragging then into the streets, the police telling people to disperse—seems tame compared to the kinds of widespread protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd and both elections of Pres. Donald Trump.
But things did get rough that night. A police officer, Peter Shields, had his skull fractured. A cop car was also vandalized, though reports 20 years on are conflicted, some saying it had a taillight broken, others claiming it was set on fire. Either way, since the police cruiser was purchased with federal funds, the local federal prosecutor convened a grand jury to identify and arrest some area anarchists. Wolf was ordered to hand over his videotape.
Weirdly, most of it was already public. He’d posted footage on his site. He’d sold other parts to a local TV station. But prosecutors wanted the outtakes. They believed the footage showed who attacked Officer Shields and who vandalized the cop car. Wolf gave a sworn statement that his footage didn’t capture either incident. U.S. District Judge William Alsup didn’t believe him and had him jailed until he handed over the footage.
Wolf now holds the record as the longest-jailed journalist in US history.
Attorney General Pam Bondi just gave the Justice Department the authorization to maybe change that. In a memorandum signed late Friday night, Bondi revoked a policy put in place under Attorney General Merrick Garland that gave journalists immunity from federal prosecution. While 49 states have shield laws protecting journalistic freedom, there are no such federal protections. In 2021, Garland decided to block the seizure of a journalist’s notes or recordings in an effort to identify those leaking government information. Bondi just reinstated the practice.
Her reasoning is pretty straightforward: She wants to stop leaks. She sees the leaking of government information, particularly that which puts the Trump Administration in a bad light, as treason. She even quotes from an executive order signed by Pres. Trump on April 9 labeling it so.
“Where a government employee improperly discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and Government effectiveness –- all ultimately designed to sow chaos and distrust in government — this conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous…”
In Bondi’s memo, she goes off on how Garland and then-Pres. Joe Biden somehow used their influence to weaponize the media and leaks to harass political opponents all while using the courts to slap gag orders on Trump to keep him from talking. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, particularly in regard to what Bondi is really doing here, which is allowing journalists to be jailed.
She stipulates that the Justice Department will allow “the use of subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to compel production of information and testimony by and relating to members of the news media.” There are some guardrails. Bondi herself must decide if the information is essential to the prosecution; if the Justice Department has tried to get the information another way; and whether the government has tried to negotiate with the media. Basically, if they ask nicely and you say no, you can go to jail.
Here's the part where all this gets sticky. Back in 2005, Wolf’s case sparked a debate over who gets to be classified as a journalist—and, as such, can either be protected under state shield laws or prosecuted by the federal government. Wolf was a blogger. He didn’t work for a legacy media organization, though he did sell some footage to one. And he was far from unbiased. He freely admits it. In a 2007 interview, he even labels bias as a form of journalistic transparency.
At the time, though, some argued that both things meant that Wolf wasn’t a journalist. He was just some 24-year-old kid who posted stuff to the internet.
These days, things are a bit different. Nearly everyone posts videos, images, musings, and rants to the web. We’re soaking in it. The term “citizen journalist” is now widely accepted. And during protests, the footage average folks post to social media weave a detailed story of what really goes on when activists and agents of the government clash. Video doesn’t lie. It shows both government overreach, like when police pepper sprayed student protestors in 2020, and insurrection, like on Jan. 6.
Our phones mean we can document anything—and, like Wolf before us, we’re all journalists. And while Bondi’s memo is ultimately focused on stopping leaks, there’s enough in there to lock up anyone who doesn’t want to let the federal government to inspect their phone.
Is that a bit of a leap? Sure. But if the last 100 days have shown us anything, it’s that the Trump Administration isn’t afraid to make previously unthinkable leaps to control information and squash dissent. Trump kicked the AP out of the White House for not agreeing to his ridiculous renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. He’s deported citizens. He’s arrested judges. If he and Bondi believed a journalist—citizen or otherwise—was withholding information, they’d have no problem tossing that person in jail for 226 days or more.
And like Trump’s other efforts to intimidate the media, from suing “60 Minutes” to taking control of the White House press pool, it’s all designed to soften coverage. If a journalist now gets hold of a scoop, be it another revelation about Pete Hegseth’s love of Signal chats to DOGE inadvertently opening up the government to a cyberattack, the Trump Administration is going to come for that journalist. It doesn’t matter if they’re an independent reporter posting on Substack or working for the Washington Post, they’re coming. Bondi just gave them permission.
Walled Gardens Are Back
Back when the iPad first hit shelves, magazines rushed into the space, hoping to transition readers away from print and toward a more interactive space. Some of the innovations were interesting, particularly Esquire’s experiments with augmented reality covers. Most magazines, though, posted PDF versions of their print editions inside hastily made apps. Unsurprisingly, iPad magazines died pretty quickly. So did the apps that held them.
But branded apps are making a big comeback. Last fall, Vogue released its new fashion and shopping app just in time for New York Fashion Week. Then, in February, New York magazine released its own app, touting it as a more immersive experience for readers. New York parent company Vox also released an app for its popular online food brand Eater. And now, legacy publishers Dotdash Meredith has gotten back into the app business, releasing an app version of People magazine.
All of these apps are loyalty plays—keeping avid readers inside of walled gardens where they can get exclusive content while publishers serve them ads. It’s worked for the New York Times for years, its app luring in users with gobs more than just the news—JMM sees you, Wordle.
What’s notable about People’s app, though, is that it has an entire dedicated editorial team. It’s not just a retread of the print product or a repackaged version of People.com. Instead, the People App, as its being branded, has a newsroom dedicated to exclusive video content and series. It has red carpet coverage that goes far beyond the staged photos and bad banter. And, of course, there’s pop culture astrology.
The secret sauce, though: It’s all delivered in an Instagram-like scroll of videos, news stories, and photo galleries, that—if JMM is being honest—is a little addictive. So much so that reading up on Daniel Dae Kim seemed like a normal thing to do. But at least JMM now knows which celebs nailed their Coachella looks. Good job 2016 Kendall Jenner!
Got the Inside Track?
Do you have some essential info or were you promoted to HR Manager, Accounting & Finance at John Deere like Selchia Cain-Hinton (Mags, RMSC ’15)? If so, then let JMM know by sending that juicy news on over to jeff.inman@drake.edu. JMM will treat it like this documentary reported by Erin Hassanzadeh (BNews, Soc., ‘14) about how climate change is impacting polar bears and tell everyone about it.
Finally, when great fonts collide.