Transcript: Between the Lines

Stark Street Productions

 

00:00:00

[Atmospheric music]

Donald Trump: Today, I'm announcing a surge of federal law enforcement into American communities plagued by violent crime. [Protesters chant]

Female voice: We're in the middle of is a propaganda war, and Portland is in the crosshairs of that. 

Donald Trump: These are professional agitators. These are people that hate our country. [Chanting]

 

00:00:30

Male voice: If it's law enforcement or protestors, no one seems to be really excited that people are documenting this stuff.

Male rally attendant: You, the media, have caused all of this!

Donald Trump: A lot of people weren't reporting it, right? They tried to pretend it was a protest as opposed to anarchists and agitators. You understand what I'm saying.

Reporter: You can't make this stuff up, but it's also a little hard to believe.

 

00:00:56

[Driving music, intense chatter, protester messages]

Woman: Every night we go out in fear, there's a really good chance that we are going to get arrested.

Woman: Are we at the back of this line?
Woman: Yes.

Woman: I’ve been arrested, and tear gassed, and shot, and brutalized while wearing a press vest.

 

00:01:28

Woman: You're bleeding. 

Woman: I know.

Man: I got beat down by the federal agents out there in front of the courthouse. Either you're meant to shoot me, or you don't care who you're shooting. In either case there's something severely messed up about that. 

[Shots, screaming]

 

00:02:00

Man: And I guess in the back of my mind I was thinking, I don't want to photograph another person die. You don't think about it until much later. And that's when the shaking starts, 

I get physically ill with a thought of more of this shit. 

Woman: Repression has become like my biggest strength. [Gentle laughter]

 

 

00:02:29

Justin Yau: I think I’ve always wanted to be a photojournalist. I wanted to see the news and I was supposed to read it from somebody else. It's always like a curiosity of a pack. What are they hiding from me? What am I not seeing? Like, why do people believe different things? How is there multiple truths to a single event?

 

00:03:02

[Protesters chanting]

Rian Dundon: In some ways protests, you know, exist for the camera, I mean.... it's a weird symbiosis. Like protests are perpetuated because the footage goes viral and people around the world get outraged on one side or the other, you know, sometimes the same footage can prove something for the left and it can prove something for the right too. I mean, these things can be kind of appropriated.

 

00:03:25

[Glass breaking, screaming]

Beth Nakamura: You know, we're living in a post-truth world. That said, my paychecks aren't signed by the antifascists. You know what I mean? Like I'm there to show the good, the bad and the ugly with what is going on. You know, this is a story that's playing out nationally in, uh, echo chambers and in, on platforms that are being ordered over by tech companies. And we're at the mercy of those as distributors of our work. All we can try to do is lay out for the record how this is unfolding every night over the course of these now four months.

 

00:04:10

Maranie Staab: Audio and video documentation during these protests is critical. A picture of someone enveloped in tear gas is powerful, but to be able to show the before, the after and to hear what that sounds like is completely different.

Man: Hey! Hey, stop hitting him!

[Screaming, yelling]

 

00:04:37

Brian Conley: You know, when I first started filming protests and like, you know, documenting protests 20 years ago, I very much felt like the presence of cameras reduced the likelihood of police violence. The protests here in Portland, like, I don't know. I almost feel like it's, uh, what's the word... irrelevant. 

 

00:05:02

Mathieu Lewis-Rolland: It's very easy for PPB to put out a press release that says, “Person assaulted police officer” and whatever. And then you can watch the video and it's, it's just not factual information.

Police officer: Get outta the street!!

[Sirens wailing]

[Man on megaphone] Disperse from the area!

Mathieu: If no one's there to tell that story, that press release is the thing that everyone has to go on. 

 

00:05:28

[Multiple people shouting]

Woman: Fuck off! Fuck off!

Man: Don't touch me. Don't touch my camera. Don’t touch my camera!

Woman: I didn’t touch your camera, fuck you!

Mathieu: Reality needs to be documented. Whether it shows something that you like, or that you don't like, it's something that happened. If you're doing something in public, then it's... the public has a right to know.

[Gate shaking, explosions, police sirens]

 

00:05:59

Woman: Go to hell, pigs!

Man: Get the fuck back!!

[Man on megaphone yelling, fireworks popping]

Maranie: A lot of the best work being done right now are the people on the ground where there's not a bunch of layers. And they're just saying, “This is who I am, this is what I'm seeing.”  And then they're putting it out there into the world. 

Officer 1: You wanna film? You can do it from down there! Get movin’!

Officer 2: Let's go!

Female reporter: You can’t disperse press!

Officer 2: Go to the end of the street.

 

00:06:33

Female reporter: So... dispersing press. They're not letting us record anything that's happening. A bunch of arrests… [Coughs]

Nathan Howard: A lot of protesters will tell you, “Oh, we don't care if the press is here,” which I personally don't believe. I think they're more savvy than that. I think that they know that while the press is here, the nation is watching and that they can get their message out.

[Man on megaphone] The press is the problem! You are the problem! You are the ones that caused the division!

 

00:07:00

Man: You created us! You! If there's division in this country, it’s because of you, you, you, you, you and you! Every one of you!

Man 2: If you tell the truth, you’re a journalist! If you lie, you’re fake press!

John Rudoff: You know, why do we do this? Why, why do people expose themselves to this kind of danger and trauma and damage and so forth for pittance?

 

00:07:27

Nathan: You know, everybody knows the money's not fantastic. The hours are terrible. It's incredibly dangerous and stressful. I couldn't really imagine doing anything else. I think that if I wasn't on assignment, I think I'd still be out there taking photos.

[Somber music]

 

00:07:56

Female reporter: Busy night on the streets of Portland. Hundreds and hundreds of people out there.

Male reporter: And again, heading towards downtown, there are hundreds of people out here. Started out peaceful, but things have changed. 

[People yelling, items breaking]

Nathan: I think it was this first night of protest. It was about 10:00 PM, and I was just watching the Twitter feeds from downtown Portland. Watching the windows getting broken, the Justice Center was lit on fire, people inside banks.

Protester: This is why we do it!

Protester: Everybody out!! Get out!! Can you [inaudible] to help people out?

 

00:08:36

Female reporter: Watching them break that window right there…

Male reporter: Looters and riot police...

Female reporter: Oh, you can see the fire right there in the middle of your screen. It's blowing up. You can see it right now.

Nathan: It just immediately struck me as something that would be very historically significant and important.

Rian: I was watching on the news. I was like, “I got to go down”. It felt like an obligation, it being in my backyard.

 

00:09:00

Man: This is one of my favorite places to come and see Portland. It's really heartbreaking to see it like this.

Mathieu: Police were chasing people through Waterfront Park, and they were chasing them north. And everyone was just running, like big crowds of people just running north, you know? And, uh, they were just firing whatever they had at them while they were running away. You know, at that time I couldn't even, like, register what I was looking at. You know, it just, it seems so, uh, just wrong. 

 

00:09:30

Female reporter: Laurel, you can see looting happening at the Starbucks in the Galleria Target building. Uh…

[Glass shattering]

Nathan: There was always a moment of, “Am I really seeing this?” Like, is this really happening here in downtown Portland? Like...

[People shouting, glass breaking]

Nathan: When we all started, most other journalists were just out there with no pads, or their phones. And then as the use of tear gas and less-lethal started to ramp up, you know, we started looking around and saying, you know, “It's not safe for us to be out here in t-shirts and jeans.” 

 

00:10:03

Nathan: And so you know, the first wave, if you can call it that, of like gear escalation for the journalists was we all went on Amazon and bought $40 gas masks and, um, maybe a hard hat. And we didn't really know what we were doing.

[Police shouting, yelling]

Officer: Move, move, move, move, move!

 

00:10:21

Mathieu: The first night I was there I was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans. And now I wear a fucking, you know, a 3A combat helmet, a Bulletproof vest, a military grade gas mask. You know, I have a cup. I mean, I'm going into a battlefield where I have been consistently in the line of fire. And I know that that stuff potentially will come my way, whether it's a rubber grenade or a flash bang or a FN 303 round or CS gas, or, you know, pepper balls or whatever it is, you just expect that that is going to be part of what's going to happen. 

 

00:10:57

Brian: Yeah, if you need heavy black rifle plates, you should, you should go home. You have a kid, you know. And I kinda thought about it. I'm like, yeah, you know, like, “What's my reasoning for this?”

[Gas hissing from canister]

John: Tear gas, when you are not protected, when you don't have a mask on, your eyes water uncontrollably, your nose starts to run snot, a lot of snot. It becomes increasingly difficult to breathe. If you have significant problems with asthma, tear gas can kill you.

 

00:11:35

[Sirens wailing, canisters exploding, people screaming]

Mathieu: It works really good. [Slow breathing]

 

00:12:02

Mathieu: Fine, yeah. It works. It works really good. I walked right into that smoke. 

Man singing: We didn’t get no sleep ‘cause of you! Y’all never get no sleep ‘cause of me!

Man on megaphone: Our Black lives are under attack! What do we do?

Crowd: Stand up, fight back!

 

00:12:24

[Car alarm beeping]

Police announcement: This is the Portland Police Bureau. To those on North Lombard Street near North Denver Avenue, this has been declared a riot. All persons must immediately leave the area by travelling to the south.

Garrison Davis: When you get back home, you can't just immediately go to sleep, uh, cause your body won't really let you. So the sleep, the sleep schedule since May has been like 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM.

Mathieu: Wake up, go shoot, come home, edit, you know, file, drink some beers, try to sleep.

 

00:13:02

Garrison: When you're out there covering the stuff in person, you're looking at the world through like a viewfinder. You're looking at the world in such a way that it becomes disassociated from what's actually happening to you in person. So then you, you don't think about it until much later. And then that's, that's when the shaking starts.

Mathieu: There's been nights where I haven't been able to sleep until 3, 4 in the afternoon, just because of the intensity of what you experience out there. 

 

00:13:28

Beth: I think what really helped my adjustment to it is, um, just kind of accepting it, like, you know, this is my life now and you know, so if I only get four hours sleep well, I'll get four hours in the afternoon. And uh, yay, you know, that means I get eight, woo-hoo, you know. [Chuckles]

Nathan: You know, I don't really know how it started, but early on in these protests, the journalists started grouping together for a couple of reasons. 

 

00:14:00

Garrison: A good thing about what's happened in Portland is that all the journalists here have not been very competition-based in our coverage. Like we're all, we all kind of became friends. We all got trauma bonded. 

John: Just from exposure and experience, we formed a little… It's generally known as a “tribe”. 

 

00:14:27

[People shouting]

Woman: Get away from me!

Officer: You’re the one who came up on me, get fuckin’ moving!

Woman: I didn’t come up on you.

Officer: You’re impeding my march.

Woman: Okay.

Officer: Fuckin’... hey!

 

00:14:36

Garrison: Some of it's a safety thing. Some of it is that we all have our own sources and it's, there's no structure to the protests. So there's no one person to say, “This is what's going to happen.” You just kind of have to get a read on things.

[People chattering]

 

00:14:55

Maranie: I can tell my other friends about what's happening, but they don't understand it in the visceral way that the community does. We're all going through this together. And there's, there's no replacement for that.

[Dramatic music]

John: Everyone in the group, a hundred percent of them, myself included, have either been shot or beaten up or knocked around, or tear-gassed, or pepper sprayed, or all of the above.

 

00:15:30

Man: Take that shit! Take that shit!

Woman: Get the fuck away from me! Get away from me!

John: There's plenty of violence and threat to go around for everyone.

[Men arguing, man on megaphone in distance]

Alissa Azar: The kinds of things that we're going through are things that if I were to tell you, “Hey, this happened,” you'd be like, Yeah, sure. I'm sure it did.” Um, and it's just, you know, from, from pipe bombs to, to gunshots to like God knows what.

 

00:15:59

Maranie: My first time that I was hurt, I was shot with a rubber bullet in my knee. There's some pretty comical photos of my, my knee floating around because it became huge. I was in septic shock. I don't really remember most of it because, um, my, my blood pressure went down into the fifties and they had me on pressors and it's pretty nuts to talk about because I feel totally fine now, but it's the first time I've ever had a doctor to be like, “You almost died.”

 

00:16:27

Mathieu: There was a stretch of nights where almost every single night I went out, I got hit with something. It started to feel ridiculous. Like I don't talk to law enforcement. I don't shout profanities. I don't, you know, I just shut up and click. So the idea that, you know, I kept on catching these rounds consistently. These are trained professionals, right? So if they're shooting, then they should be hitting exactly what they're aiming at. And if they're not hitting what they're aiming at, then they're just fucking firing indiscriminately into a crowd, which, [Laughs]  you know what I mean? It's like, it's one or the other. Either you meant to shoot me or you don't care who you're shooting. In either case, there's something severely messed up about that, you know?

 

00:17:13

Beth: It is violating to be assaulted. It is violating even to be pushed by someone. That is, that is not, uh, you know, there's a reason that's called “assault”. But that said, I think that the digital assaults hurt a little harder, I think. You know, people online who say, you know, “Too bad we didn't exterminate you all in World War II”. Uh, you know, because of my last name, it’s Japanese. It really hurts to even have to read that. And yet I don't really want to get used to that either. I mean, underneath the vest and the helmet and you know, all that stuff, I'm a very soft person. And I think that that balance of, uh, kind of tender humanity and a kind of toughness is a really important balance. So I have to protect that humanity from what's out there.

 

00:18:06

[Intense, sudden blaring beat]

[People screaming, rounds popping]

Rian: I got beat down by the federal agents out there in front of the courthouse, on the sidewalk. I got uh… it's all on video. I mean, it went like, viral on the internet. It's uh... I'm standing there taking a picture of one thing…

[Screaming, intense beat continues, horn beeping]

 

00:18:29

Rian: You can see him, he kinda like gets my shirt, and he ragdolls me like down the sidewalk.

[Screaming, horns beeping] 

Rian: I landed on a tear gas canister as it ignited, so I like burned up my back. And I had my press ID, they ripped it off. I get up again and another guy pushed me down and holds me with his nightstick under the, under the gas from the same tear gas canister. So I was like, you know, I was like passing out ‘cause he held me under there for like 10 seconds.

 

00:19:02

[Intense beat continues, screaming, explosions]

Rian: And I'm like, “I'm press!” And classic photographer, I went all fetal position with my camera. He's trying to get my arms back to arrest me because, I don't know what he was trying to do, arrest a member of the press. 

 

00:19:30

Garrison: Yeah. Um, I'll talk about the worst day. Um, there was this young man just in like, in his twenties, and he was holding a boombox on the sidewalk across the street from the courthouse.

Man: Hey, kick that shit!

Garrison: I’m about five feet away from him. I'm filming at the time. And then I hear this horrible sound…

[Crashing, low beat, horn blaring]

 

00:19:55

Garrison: And I see, I turn and see a body collapsing onto the ground, blood pouring out of his skull. People rush in and grab this person and they drag his limp body away from the sidewalk.

[People shouting]

Garrison: They start doing first aid, trying to stop this giant head wound, just bleeding everywhere.

[Heartbeat pulsing]

 

00:20:19

Garrison: The next day was probably like the roughest day for me. Like I was... like my whole body, my whole body was vibrating. I couldn't really like think about anything. That night, I was fine because I was doing, I was doing the job. I was looking at the world, you know, like this through my phone. I wasn't actually present, uh, I didn't get to like, think about or process anything, but the next day that's when my body like, shut down. And I was like, “What just happened to you?”

 

00:20:44

Mathieu: You know, personally speaking, I can see shit happen now, and it's not so much that I don't cognitively know it's fucked up. But, uh, it doesn't, it doesn't affect me in the moment. I just take a picture and move on.

Police on megaphone: [inaudible] that hear this order are subject to arrest, citation….

 

00:21:09

Mathieu: Your skin thickens, but also there's sort of a terrifying element to that. It's kind of like, you know, the, uh, moving of the goalposts, you know. What you once thought was traumatic is now child's play, you know, and it's just… how much further does it get? You know, how, how much farther can you push those limits? 

Police on megaphone: ...tear gas and/or [inaudible, flares popping]. Leave immediately by travelling to the east.

 

00:21:36

Alissa: I tried to hang out with a friend at the park a few nights ago and I was just constantly flinching and like looking over my shoulders. I would just envision like, you know, riot cops just coming and chasing after us. And I would like physically, like flinch, like what is happening? What is wrong with me? Because I've never felt that way. Like even when I'm there, you know, it's like, “Oh riot cops, okay.” I guess like, I'm just like smoking a cigarette and filming and it's... it's whatever. But when... when I'm not there, I feel like I'm forced to kinda face everything.

 

00:22:10

Police on megaphone: You must immediately leave the area by travelling to the east.

Garrison: One of the easier ways to kind of get your mind off of the imminent danger you're in is to think of it as a game. Because yeah, you are really inundated with looking for cover, ducking through impact munitions, trying to avoid tear gas clouds, you know, you're, you're, it gets kind of gamified when it kind of like weaving in and out of these, you know, munitions flying. 

 

00:22:37

Female reporter: The affidavit also references this video from a live streamer and witness to the shooting. In it, two shots were fired. 

[Two loud, echoing gunshots]

Nathan: I've seen probably more bullet wounds than the average person has. It wasn't a very, like, visceral bullet wound. There was very little blood, which actually is not a good sign if you're shot.

 

00:23:00

Nathan: We had only been out there for about two minutes when the ambulance drove away and that's without him in it. And that's when they knew that he died. So it was tough. I mean, it was, I think there was a moment there where… maybe after I was there for about 15 seconds, I could tell that like it wasn't good. And I think in the back of my head, I just said, “Just keep shooting, just keep shooting, just keep shooting. Like, you don't know what this is yet. Just, you got to have photos of it. You got to have photos of it.”

 

00:23:32

Nathan: Um, but at the same time, I was like, this guy is dying. Like... and there's a moment where you're like, “Am I a photographer? Am I human? Do I help? Do I not help? Am I helping by photographing?” I mean, it's a very, I still don't know how I feel about it. I'm glad I made the images. I’d make them again. Um, but it's a pretty cold calculation you have to make in that moment. And you don't have a lot of time to think about it.

 

00:23:52

Alissa: I dunno. Just kind of getting over things a lot quicker. Um, repression has become like my biggest strength. [Laughs] So yeah, and I, I feel like that's, that's kind of scary on a few different levels. I mean, on one end, there's the psychological aspect, which is terrifying, but also what does that mean for, like my own risk assessment? 

Nathan: You can't shoot this on a 70 to 200 from a block away. Like you really need to be in there to accurately portray what's happening. We've realized that like the spot that you need to be is right there. And we've just gotten more comfortable being in that danger zone.

 

00:24:29

[Screaming, shouting, explosions]

Maranie: I was arrested on August 6th.

[Music playing in background]

Maranie: We were at the east precinct and it was very early on in the, in the protest. 

Justin: It was the night of June 30th. I think it was 12:45 when the crowd made contact with the riot line of police officers. 

 

00:25:07

[Protesters yelling]

Maranie: And so I was walking backwards with camera in one hand, uh, iPhone video in the other. 

[Horn blaring]

Police on megaphone: Leave the area now, it is time to go home.

Justin: And I was filming a female protester who was purposely, I think, walking very slowly.

 

00:25:30

Maranie: And I got up on the sidewalk because the refrain is to get out of the street, get out of the streets.

Justin: Get out of the street or are we going to mace you or pepper spray you. So I started recording that.

Maranie: No one wants to be like the last person, because oftentimes police just pick off the slowest. 

Woman 1: Are we at the back of this line?

Woman 2: Yes.

Woman 1: We don’t wanna be at the back of this line, right?

Woman 2: No!

Woman 1: Let’s move a little further.

Justin: And I got tackled from my side. I didn't know that that was going to happen. My phone flew out of my hand, I collapsed on top of my camera, which broke my lens.

 

00:26:00

Officer: Hey, hey, police! You’re under arrest!

Maranie: I tried to get up and he pushes me again into the street.

Protester: What the fuck is wrong with you?! You beat your wife like that?! That’s a fuckin’ woman, you piece of shit!

Justin: I had a respirator on, so I was resting that on the pavement and I just was very, very limp. I don't want to have more charges tacked on.

Protester: Clearly has identified as press from his helmet. I am questioning you as to why you are arresting a member of the press.

 

00:26:27

Maranie: Physically removes me from the sidewalk, puts me on the street and then proceeds to arrest me. 

Justin: They cuffed me, searched me, searched my bag. I just kept waiting for them to be like, “Oh, you're, you're a journalist, you're a mock press, okay. Oh, you have a camera. You're filming all of this. Off you go on merry way.” But that never happened.

[Protesters screaming]

Woman: Maranie!

Maranie: While I'm on my stomach, because there's a grown man on my back, he's telling me to stop resisting arrest. I'm half his size and I'm also a professional and I'm smart enough to know not to resist the police. So none of that is true. 

 

00:27:06

Justin: And they put me in, in a, in a riot van and there were already people arrested earlier that night in the riot van. And we're bouncing around and you can hear the officers and they're having a jolly old time, you know, “Everyone mount up!” And they're like, “Choo choo!”

Maranie: The next eight hours -- [Sighs] eight hours were... just sucked.

 

00:27:29

Justin: It's like a DMV. Like, but from hell.

Maranie: I woke up the next day, I logged onto social media. People who have nothing better to do with their lives had, uh, posted all over my Facebook. 

Justin: I hate to admit that that changed me. I really do. It’d be like they won, but I think it did change me a little bit. I guess that's the privilege of, you know, having grown up in the way that I did was that, you know, if you don't do anything wrong, the police won't do anything to you. But that's clearly not the case anymore in my head. But, uh, I think the hardest part was, was calling and telling my parents, yeah.

 

 

00:28:10

[Protesters chanting]

Man: This was the 100th night of protests. 

Woman on microphone: 100 days, we haven’t seen very much change, right?

Man: Everybody knew that the hundredth night was going to be big in some way. 

Protesters chanting: [inaudible] fuck the police, no justice, no peace!

 

00:28:28

Beth:There was a lot of energy that night. ‘Cause we're at night 100, it was a big night.

Woman on stage: You are in a war.

Man: Immediately return to Ventura Park via sidewalks…

Beth: Protesters were just pouring out onto the street and the police were going to shut that shit down right away.

Brian: And so I happened to be filming and you can actually see in the video, you can see, uh, Nathan's Getty photographer, duck, you know?

[Inaudible shouting]

Man: Fuck the police!

 

00:28:56

Nathan: Just out of the corner of my eye, I saw this streak of orange. 

[Man on megaphone chanting, sudden stops and says, “Oh shit!”]

[High piercing tone]

Beth: The streets, literally in flames. This guy comes running toward me, you know, with his legs on fire. 

Nathan: I think I'd made like two frames in that moment. Like it just, it happened so quick.

Beth: A lot of people have this perception that, you know, “You're so brave, you're so brave.” You know, I get that word all the time and it's like, dude, I am so not brave! [Laughs] Like, no!

 

00:29:28

[Protesters screaming, patting man down]

Nathan: And this had, this was only about a week after the protester had been shot and killed downtown and I'm watching him burn. And I guess in the back of my mind, I was thinking, “I don't want to photograph another person die.”

Beth: Photographers are all different. You know, and some, some photographers are more steely in their mind. They're more rational people and their images are more like, rational. You know what I mean? And, and for me I'm like [Screams in fear]. And my images, some of them it's like, they look like, they look like how I feel. 

 

00:30:06

Rian: Yeah, I got there right after all the Molotovs and everything. And it was, there was nobody there. And, um, me and my buddy Dan walked up and were like, “What's going on?” And it's just like, you could smell tear gas. And there was just two, like burnt shoes in the road. And I was like, “That's weird.” So I took a picture of them. Found out later that it was ‘cause that kid got his feet caught on fire.

 

00:30:28

John: Unfortunately, the question of people dressed up as press and acting like activists is a real problem. All that people like me can do is try and stay away from them.

Officer: [inaudible] if you’re not press! You’re not press!

Officer: If they’re not press, take them into custody!!

[“America the Beautiful” plays in the background]

Officer: Do not resist!

[Protesters shouting, glass breaking]

 

00:31:05

Alissa: There's people I always see out there that are marked “Press” and there'll be streaming, but they also engage in chance and heckling with cops. And to each their own, but that's also... that's not how I participate. 

Beth: When I see people out on the protest ground wearing press credentials and taunting police, it really bothers me. There's not a journalist I know who would be caught doing anything like that. Um, and that makes for some complicated policing.

 

00:31:34

Nathan: There's a reason that the temporary restraining order is in place. It's because cops were being very brutal with the press. They were being even more brutal with protestors. So the protesters saw a legal decision that said, “If I'm wearing press, the cops won't beat me. So I'm going to put on a press sticker, cause I don't want to get beat.” I think that that is an understandable desire. I understand why they do it, but it does make our lives very, very difficult out there.

 

00:32:00

[Gentle synthwave plays]

Beth: And I don't want to scapegoat those folks, um, because certainly a lot of that responsibility lies with police, but it's complicated policing. I'm not in the pocket of the cops here. It's just true. It's complicated. You can see that.

Nathan: I personally have no problem with anybody who wants to call themselves press going out there and watching what's happening and documenting what's happening.

 

00:32:39

Nathan: When you start to yell at the cops, when you start to make yourself an active participant, um, that's when I start to take issues. And I've on multiple occasions told people who are doing that that they need to stop or take off their press pass. They usually don't listen to me, but I do say it. 

Beth: We live in a hate-filled world. And you know, when you're, when you're doing journalism, you're sort of in the crosshairs of it all.

 

00:32:54

Justin: Because ultimately I don't know where that was going. I don't think anyone can honestly tell me they know where this is going. The guy who shot Franz Ferdinand didn't know that he caused World War I in that moment. And I don't know when that moment is, where that flash point’s going to be. I'm just here to, to bear witness and to keep record and to document. And uh, one day someone much smarter than me will look back and say, “Okay, so this is what happened here on that day.” And hopefully I was there to honestly be able to capture it. Yeah.

 

00:33:25

John: What the press does, whether it's a staff person working for the Oregonian or an unattached live streamer or anybody in between has social utility and importance. And you trim off those people at society's peril.

Beth: It's very unsexy work. Uh, I'm just lugging a bunch of junk around, uh, sweaty and gross and running and tripping and falling. You know, I can show you my gear, it's a mess. Um, so there's nothing like, pretty or glamorous about this.

 

00:34:01

Beth: At the end of the day, I get the last laugh because I have the best job in the world and I've never imagined even wanting to do anything else. I feel like I was born to do this work. And I'm lucky that I still get to do it.

John: People who do this kind of coverage usually are not in it for a lark. And they're usually not in it to make a lot of money and they're not, you know, vultures circling a dead body.

 

00:34:25

John: We are doing something that, I think globally, is socially important. And that requires support and understanding, or at the very least not obstruction. The signs you see, you see them everywhere in the big demonstrations, how many weren't filmed? It's correct. How many weren't filmed? It's true. It's what we do. 

 

00:34:58

[Triumphant, hopeful music]

Beth: I feel that we are sort of lonely guardians of the truth out there.

 

00:35:30

[Music continues]

 

00:36:00

[Music continues]

 

00:36:30

[Music continues]

[Protesters screaming]

Officer: We gotta get you out, okay?

Reporter: I'm a member of the press.

Officer: We already asked the press to leave.

Reporter: It’s my job!

Officer: Come on, come on.

Reporter: I'm a member of the press. I want to report. I want to report! I do not want to leave!

Officer: Don’t resist!

Reporter: I do not!

 

00:36:59

Reporter: I do not want to leave!

Officer: Well you have to leave. Come on. You’re okay, you’re okay, I don’t wanna hurt you.

Reporter: Get your hands off of me! This is against the law! I am a member of the press. I am a member of the press.

Officer: Very good!

Reporter: Guess what? The news is over there.

Officer: Okay, why don’t you tell them that.

Reporter: The news is over there. Take your hands off of me. Take your hands -- do you really think I’m gonna get away? Take your hands off of me.