Journalists have a constitutional right and responsibility to report all news, including protests.
It’s an outage to learn local and long-time journalist Bryant Furlow and his wife, photographer Tara Armijo-Prewitt, were arrested on Wednesday while covering a protest at the University of New Mexico and kept in custody for 12 hours.
There’s no ambiguity to the issue. Reporters have First Amendment rights, and UNM police chose to violate those rights.
Furlow asked where news media should stand as well as for a public information officer or other officials in charge, but received no answers, according to a statement he released Thursday.
“As I was being arrested, I said I was a member of the press repeatedly and loudly,” he wrote in his statement.
It’s clear that law enforcement showed a blatant disregard for the reporters’ rights, as the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government pointed out in a statement on Thursday.
“Freedom of the press is one of the hallmarks of American democracy and enshrined as one of the five freedoms in the First Amendment … This is not just an opinion; it is the law. The Constitution recognizes the right (and duty) of the press to report all news,” the FOG statement reads.
The New Mexico Local News Fund also spoke out about the arrests in a statement released Friday.
“It is vitally important to respect the legal protections afforded to journalists. These protections are essential for maintaining transparency and accountability in our society,” says NMLNF’s statement.
Reporting on a protest is not a crime.
We commend the journalists for planning to fight the criminal charges they shouldn’t have received in the first place. We absolutely support FOG’s recommendation that the UNM Police Department immediately drop the charges.
All officials must be held accountable, including law enforcement. Outrageous incidents like this can’t go unnoticed.
SPJ reached out to UNM Police regarding the arrests. They have not yet returned our calls.
