Here’s our statement at @FreedomofPress welcoming the jury verdict for @dmregister reporter Andrea Sahouri.
It’s still infuriating Polk County prosecutors wasted time and resources on a case that clearly violated her press freedom rights. https://t.co/ORYxEHepMWpic.twitter.com/7DIlNk3ByA
“We are very grateful that justice was done today, and that Andrea was fully exonerated. But it should never have come to this,” Maribel Perez, the head of the news division at Gannett, told the Washington Post. Gannett Co., Inc. owns the Des Moines Register.
128 reporters were arrested in the United States in 2020 while on the job, according to the US Press Freedom Tracker. Daily Caller reporters Shelby Talcott and Jorge Ventura were arrested in September 2020 while covering riots in Louisville, Kentucky. The charges against them were dropped.