ABC News crew wears gas masks while filming the Funk the War group, in front of MPR on 7th Street. Photo: T. Roman

Of the 800-plus people who were arrested or detained in conjunction with RNC protests, a good chunk of them — 46, by our count — were members of the news media. Media representatives in town to cover the events, from both big and small presses, were slapped with citations and pending charges ranging in severity, including unlawful assembly, obstructing the legal process, misdemeanor interference with a peace officer and felony to riot plus other riot pretenses. (Notably Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was jailed along with two of the show’s producers.) Many others who weren’t arrested or detained endured pepper-spray and other arms used for crowd-control.

MnIndy has compiled a list of journalists who were detained or arrested, including some preemptively, culled from news reports and sources, including the Ramsey County sheriff’s department’s booking roster. Let us know if anyone is unaccounted for and we’ll add them to the list.

Journalists detained/arrested:

Tom Aviles, WCCO photojournalist

Charlie B, MTV Think blogger (full last name unknown)

Anita Braithwaite, New York-based Glass Bead Collective

Wendy Binion, Portland IndyMedia

Andy Birkey, Minnesota Independent

Geraldine Cahill, The Real News

Eileen Clancy, I-Witness Video, a New York-based media collective

Paul Demko, Minnesota Independent

Amy Forliti, Associated Press reporter

Ben Garvin, Pioneer Press photographer

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! host

Art Hughes, Public News Service

Suzanne Hughes, The Uptake, volunteer coordinator

Ted Johnson, Variety managing editor

Olivia Katz, Glass Bead Collective

Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Democracy Now! producer

Alice Kalthoff, MyFoxdfw.com editor

Jon Krawczynski, Associated Press reporter

Joseph La Sac, Pepperspray Productions journalist

Brian Madigan, Minneapolis freelancer

Ed Matthews, University of Kentucky photojournalism student

Jonathan Malat, KARE-11 photojournalist

Stephen Maturen, Minnesota Daily assistant picture editor

Britney McIntosh, University of Kentucky photojournalism student

Matt Nelson, University of Iowa student

Jason Nicholas, New York Post freelance photographer

Mark Ovaska, Rochester freelance photographer

Christopher Patton, Editorial board member of The Daily Iowan

Elizabeth Press, Democracy Now!

Matt Rourke, Associated Press photographer

Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet

Lambert Rochfort, Pepperspray Productions journalist

Seth Rowe, Sun Newspapers, St. Louis Park community editor

Jeff Schorfheide, Madison, Wis. Badger-Herald photographer

Mark Skinner, University of Nevada Las Vegas Rebel Yell reporter

Ania Smolenskaia, The Real News

Matt Snyders, City Pages

Nicole Salazar, Democracy Now! producer

Vlad Teichberg, New York-based Glass Bead Collective

Dean Treftz, U-Wire, national college news service

Nathan Weber, photographer, Chicago-area freelancer

Tony Webster, Twin Cities independent media professional

Jim Winn, University of Kentucky journalism adviser

John P. Wise, MyFox national editor

Dawn Zuppelli, Rochester IndyMedia

As crews picked up after the RNC in downtown St. Paul Friday morning, a handful of local and national journalists went to City Hall and delivered 50,000 signatures pressuring St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and the city and county attorneys to immediately release journalists who were recently arrested in connection to convention protests and to drop all charges against them.

Nancy Doyle Brown (pictured at the microphone above), a media reform organizer from the Twin Cities Media Alliance, said she and others want to send a message that “journalism is not a crime.” Journalists have “been detained and arrested, subjected to raids, pepper-sprayed and more simply for showing up to work. These have been dark days for press freedom in the U.S.,” she said.

According to a separate statement from the national nonprofit organization, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), which is making similar demands of the city of St. Paul, volunteer legal counsel and news editors/directors tried to negotiate with police commanders for the release of reporters on the scene at the demonstration Thursday evening, “but [Ramsey County Sheriff Bob] Fletcher and [St. Paul Police Chief John] Harrington apparently intervened, they said, and ordered that the journalists be issued criminal citations. Once ticketed, the journalists were released,” the RCFP statement goes on. Others have been tear-gassed or held at gunpoint.

Media professionals had pursued protesters as they marched from the Capitol lawn into the downtown area. “Law enforcement officers flanked the marchers and corralled them on bridges passing over Interstate 94,” and they were detained on the bridges while police processed them,” it continues.

“We’re demanding that all charges against journalists covering the RNC be immediately and unconditionally dropped. We respect the important role officers play in maintaining a safe place for people to exercise their freedom… tragically there are stories that the world needed to hear this week that will never be told. They won’t be told because the reporters working on them were sitting in the back of squad cars, stripped of their cameras, or were face down on the pavement with their hands tied behind their back,” said Brown.

Additionally, in a preemptive attack on journalists, homes where they were staying were raided over the past couple weeks. Twin Cities Daily Planet editor Mary Turck, (shown below) vouched for that, while adding that one of her writers was arrested Thursday night. “Police are now holding personal belongings…and saying they can’t get them back till Monday. That is one example of the use of police power as sheer harassment for journalists,” said Turck.

One person who said he’s been subjected to it firsthand is Sharif Abdel Koubdous, a producer for the national radio/TV show Democracy Now, who was arrested twice this week and is now facing pending felony charges and for being a part of an “unlawful assembly.” “These charges are unacceptable. We are clearly marked as press… We were simply doing our job and nothing more. We shouldn’t be penalized for it,” he said.

Mike Buscko, with the Minnesota Newspaper Guild, which represents more than 450 local journalists, including some at the Pioneer Press, echoed their sentiments, saying, “We’re appalled by the treatment of journalists. It’s had a chilling effect on the coverage of the convention outside and in the street… The police were heavy-handed, and we’re concerned on a local and national basis.”

Inside City Hall, Deputy Mayor Ann Mulholland responded, “I know you take these seriously and as do we. We value your First Amendment rights and we value the rights of the media.” Overall, “We feel we conducted a great convention.” The Mayor “appreciates your rights, interests and abilities to cover stories.”

And in his office, City Attorney John Choi told reporters, “I’m a believer in justice.” Among the numerous arrests, most received citations and weren’t charged with a crime, he said, adding, “We’ll look at all the facts. We only proceed on cases where there’s probable cause to prosecute… This isn’t about politics or making decisions on political whims… I assure you we’ll do the right thing… Justice requires that we review these cases carefully and seriously.”

(Pictured below are the thousands of letters signed by people across the country, with the first 35 pages filled by Minnesotans.)

“To have a reporter’s privilege taken away in a case where there is no specific violation of the law being cited greatly weakens the ability of reporters to keep their unpublished information confidential,” said Star Tribune lawyer John Borger. Minnesota Monitor first mentioned the case here.

Judge rules in Strib theft case: In a 13-page decision rendered on Friday, Ramsey County District Judge David Higgs ordered Star Tribune publisher Par Ridder to turn over computers, hard drives and USB drives that may contain information on Ridder’s alleged theft of data from his old employer, the Pioneer Press. The decision also blocks PiPress exec Jennifer Parratt, who is accused of violating the non-compete clause in her contract, from starting work for Ridder at the Star Tribune.

Meanwhile, Tim McGuire, an editor at the Strib for 23 years and now chairman at University of Arizona’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, wrote a letter to the editor, urging Ridder and Strib interim publisher Fred Mott to rise above the “detestable muck” of such cross-river rivalry: “In a time when newspapers are under a dramatic market assault, both newspapers will be irreparably weakened by a long, public romp in the sewer of accusations and counter-accusations.”