Nora Lopez, editor of the San Antonio Express-News interviewed by Poynter.
What have the past two weeks been like for your newsroom in covering the mass shooting in Uvalde?
...It’s been a difficult story, but it’s been made all the more difficult by the problems that we the media have encountered with law enforcement and authorities in Uvalde. That has been a whole other issue that we’ve had to deal with. In addition to the trauma of covering such an event, then to have to deal with all this harassment and attempts to stop us from reporting this story has been really disconcerting.
We’ve had reporters on the ground who have been harassed. Last Thursday, there were groups of motorcycle gangs that we believe are former police officers. They were physically getting in front of reporters and videographers, and using their body and their hands to try to obstruct the sidelines. The motorcycle gangs kind of backed off a little bit on Friday, but through the weekend, the police that’s been there helping with the situation continue to do the same thing …
I can understand they’re trying to control all this media that’s descended on this little town. We, the media, are used to having designated areas where they ask us to stay and stand, and then they come and give us updates. But even in this case, they’ve put up fire engines to block the view of the church or the funeral home — even the cemetery. Now they’re putting up blockades around the entire block where the funeral home is. So now we can’t even walk across the street to the corner there. They are like, ‘No, you can’t be here,’ even though it’s a public sidewalk.
There’s about a dozen police departments in Texas who have sent volunteers to help the Uvalde police. So some of this has come from these visiting jurisdictions, which is just really bizarre because they’re out of their jurisdiction. They don’t have the power to do anything. If they want to arrest us, they have to call in the Uvalde police. … They keep threatening to arrest us, but so far they haven’t. It’s been really hostile. There’s the concern that they are violating our constitutional rights, because we have the right to news gather. I believe that this is bordering on official oppression in stopping us from talking to people and doing my jobs.
The other equally disconcerting thing to me is that they’re also discouraging families from talking to us because they’re hustling them along. Even families who have agreed to talk to the media, they’re basically saying, ‘No, you shouldn’t. You need to move, you need to just move along quickly.’ That’s my biggest concern, that they’re actually now stopping people who want to talk to us, from talking to us.
