The US should not be eroding press freedom – it is a pillar of democracy

The first-person account we publish today of the arrest and incarceration in Seattle of our correspondent is a disturbing one. This is not simply because Andrew Buncombe was a journalist peaceably going about his lawful, constitutionally protected trade, but because of the light it sheds on the everyday casual inhumanity of the police in a medium-sized American city.

Andrew’s brief exposure to what so many Americans go through provides a glimpse into a deeply unhealthy culture of law enforcement. The irony is that the attempt to stop Andrew from reporting yielded an even more enlightening report.

There is, for example, such disregard for the safety and health of those arrested, in this supposedly liberal corner of the United States. Those detained face abuse and threats as if they had no human rights, as if the American Bill of Rights had never been drawn up. Even accused terrorists and drug barons have their basic rights protected under America’s famous constitution, but those with Andrew in the back of the police vehicle and in the overcrowded jail cells were merely peaceful, unarmed protesters charged, overwhelmingly, with minor offences and misdemeanours.

Andrew was not alone in being made to feel afraid, to be robbed of dignity, mocked when he protested and generally dehumanised and roughed up. Putting someone in handcuffs, leg irons and a tight iron belt just for trying to take a photograph in a permitted area is disproportionate, to put it mildly. People had been shot and killed in the area where Andrew was reporting, but arresting a journalist is clearly police overreaction. It speaks to a wider problem.

When you lock too many people in a room with no sanitation at a time of a deadly Covid-19 pandemic – as happened with Andrew – it is suggestive of a certain state of mind; certain lives don’t matter. There is no reason to think that the Seattle Police Department is unusual in its outlook.

Perhaps there are reasons, though not justifications, for it – a tough job under political pressure from all sides, and, maybe, poor morale or inadequate training and resources. But also there is the impression that the legal immunities granted in America to the police, and the encouragement they receive from irresponsible politicians, contribute greatly to that atmosphere of carelessness and callousness towards their fellow citizens. Whatever, it is an institutionally brutalised and brutalising system, with a well documented tendency towards institutional racism.

That is a story worth telling, and Andrew’s experience in reporting it is only one example of so many undertaken by journalists everywhere in the face of intimidation, and worse. It demonstrates precisely why strong, independent reportage is to be valued. That has long been true, of course, but now, in our own time, we endure a generation of leaders in some nations purporting to be free democracies who deride as “fake news” the honest trade of reporting events, investigating scandals and offering a platform for free speech.

Such voices create a fantastical conspiracy of the “mainstream media”. We are accused of acting against the interests of the people when in fact the opposite is true. We are just doing our job, and it’s an important job in a democracy. For that, it appears, you can in America today be arrested.

Holding the powerful to account and exposing malfeasance is an important business, and it is why we invite readers of The Independent to contribute to our supporter programme. This is a fund that is used solely to pay for investigations and reporting that would not otherwise happen. We have seen this fund put to tremendous use by our health correspondent Shaun Lintern, investigating the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the NHS, and the shortcomings in Britain’s coronavirus testing regime. His reporting has set the agenda. Without your generosity, it would not have happened. This is also a time when the pandemic and its economic downturn has had a devastating effect on advertising rates that support news publishers.

We have a growing readership in the US – more now than in Britain – and soon our US-based readers will be able to support our journalism in this way. We would like to hear about subjects you think we should look into – you can make these suggestions by emailing letters@independent.co.uk. One subject we are addressing is that of police conduct – it is, sadly, an important subject worldwide, with far, far greater consequences than the arrest of one Independent journalist in Seattle.

Whichever subjects arise, now is the time to defend the greater cause of press freedom across our world.