When your press badge doesn’t protect you

When your press badge doesn’t protect you.

In my latest episode of The Culture Soup Podcast®️, Errin Haines shares what it was like reporting on the ground in Ferguson—rubber bullets flying, tear gas in the air—while law enforcement made no distinction between journalists and protesters.

“Me having on a press badge or identifying myself as press—that did not protect me.”

This is bigger than one city or one moment. It’s about:

1. Press freedom under active threat
2. Black journalists being silenced, sidelined, or detained for doing their jobs
3. The urgent need for advocacy orgs like NABJ to lead out loud—again

Errin’s running for NABJ president with a platform that doesn’t flinch: restore accountability, diversify funding so we’re not muzzled, and prepare journalists to wield AI and other emerging tech with integrity.

🎥 Watch the clip.

🎧 Then watch and listen to the full conversation this afternoon.

Question for you: Can an organization truly advocate for us if it depends on the very institutions it should be holding accountable?