A local TV station reporter-photographer team were the latest journalists--the first in 2018--to make the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker's database of physical attacks on journalists in the United States.
WPIX TV New York reporter Howard Thompson and photographer John Frasse were chased and struck by a bat-wielding auto repair shop owner during an attempted interview. They kept rolling and eventually called the police.
The Web site was launched last August by almost two dozen press freedom groups, including the Radio-TV Digital News Association, to document press attacks in a climate for journalists made increasingly hostile by the Presidents attacks on the mainstream media.
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So far, the site has documented 47 physical attacks since its launch.
To qualify as an attack it must be "physical violence and injury or equipment damage, either as the result of a targeted attack by a public or private individual or in the course of their work."
