In the second installment of “The Debrief: Guantanamo Edition,” Medill National Security Specialization students who recently returned from a reporting trip to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay discuss the so-called “Tent City” where journalists live during their brief stays on post.

Medill National Security Journalism Specialization students discuss what journalists reporting from Naval Base Guantanamo Bay should back before they leave.

BALTIMORE — Despite playing host to a major demonstration earlier in the day, Baltimore City Hall became a press-addled ghost town as the citywide 10 p.m. curfew approached on April 30, 2015.  Check out the photo gallery above to get a glimpse of the situation on the ground there on Thursday night.

Reporters, photographers and other journalists rarely receive formal training on how to cover urban protests and demonstrations.  Usually they rely on the collected wisdom of colleagues who have had earlier experiences, some as recent as last year’s tension and violence in Ferguson, Missouri.

Now with the current demonstrations and violent protests in Baltimore following the death in police custody of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, another collection of journalists, young and old, is witnessing and learning what it means to cover unrest in one of the nation’s larger cities.

The lessons can be hard, the anxiety high and the consequences fearsome, so I went cautiously into the fray of Baltimore neighborhoods Tuesday to get a feel for the situation awaiting journalists on the ground and to gather reporting advice from veteran journalists, along with cautionary tips from military and community leaders. I was joined by Medill reporters Matt Schehl, Beth Lawrence and Zachary Vasile, who were also covering the tensions.

Here are some thoughts based on our observations and interviews that will help navigate reporting on often-violent street protests that can be as confusing as they are dangerous.

1. Don’t go it alone.

While flaming police cars and flying bricks tend to be the exception rather than the rule when it comes to covering protests, the whole “safety in numbers” maxim still applies.

The ability to operate across a variety of media is all well and good, but when time is of the essence and deadline is nearing, picking a niche at which you can excel can make the difference between a good story and a great one.

If you are a print journalist, it helps to be paired with a photographer. If you work in video, it helps to have a sound person. Regardless of how you mix-and-match your group’s components, having two (or more) players on your reporting team will increase your level of safety, help you fact-check details observed on the ground and allow you to focus wholly on your work within a single reporting medium versus trying to be a one-man band.

It’s also vital to set a rallying point before the start of an event – and especially a demonstration – where your reporting team can meet if anything goes awry. That way, even if your phone chargers die and you get separated in a large crowd, you can use that landmark as a point of reference for the sake of safety.

“Have a buddy and know where you parked your car,” says Reuters News Agency video producer Zachary Goelman.

2. Realize that the media is not a welcomed guest by everyone in the Baltimore community.

Two negative schools of thought regarding the media are gaining traction there.

The first is that the media has no place at peaceful demonstrations because it is sensationalism-obsessed, and, so, citizens assume that we’ll be disappointed unless we have a riot to show for our attendance and, therefore, we tend to tell unbalanced stories.

The second is that the media’s mere presence at demonstrations exacerbates tensions between civilians and law enforcement and essentially eggs the latter on, so an absence of media would result in increased peace between cops and the community.

While both of these points are worth considering, they also put journalists at risk of bodily harm or other types of harassment. It’s important to realize that clear communication can help build the missing trust.

Introduce yourself and your organization. Be open to hearing out subjects’ perspectives and building a story around them vs. trying to illicit responses that fit within a predetermined angle. Above all, treat your story subjects with respect and courtesy, and treat each introduction and interview as a human – rather than a business – transaction.

3. Understand preexisting biases.

Recognize that racial tension is high and many people may be reluctant to speak with reporters of any color.  In the eyes of many local citizens, the Freddie Gray case is as much about race as it is about law-enforcement accountability.

4. Bring (or rent) a car.

You cannot rely on just Baltimore’s public transit system, the geography of the Freddie Gray story is wide and its major flash points may change quickly.   Hopping in a car is much more time-efficient on deadline. If you’re car-less or can’t afford a rental, Uber is the next best thing. Wait times on Tuesday tended to be in the 3-5 minute range, and we didn’t pay more than $10 to get anywhere.

5. Pack the right equipment.

On Tuesday evening, the police-press dynamic at the protest around the intersection of West North and Pennsylvania avenues in Baltimore became very hostile, very quickly. Tear gas and smoke both came into play, in addition to projectiles being tossed by protestors at cops.

I didn’t bring a helmet, but I did bring a painter’s respirator (~$30 at Home Depot) just in case. I thought I was being paranoid, but soon as smoke appeared at Tuesday night’s protest and then saw other journalists donning gas masks and respirators of their own, I was glad I did.

Jeff Abell, a journalist with Baltimore Fox affiliate WBFF TV, advises journalists to keep a safe, reasonable distance from tear gas when it is deployed because the wind can carry the chemical your way even if you aren’t the intended target.

“If you’re out of sight, you’re gonna be out of mind,” he says.

Goelman, the video producer from Reuters,  suggested packing “a bicycle helmet if you have it, a respirator if you can find one, some sort of eye protection” and “clothes you don’t mind donating” in addition to your normal reporting equipment.

And on a tech note, bring backup power for your backup power. Portable power sources run from about $5 (~one full smartphone charge, but not necessarily as powerful after the first go round) to $40 (~3 full smartphone charges and a bit sturdier), and are necessary investments for anyone heading out to Baltimore.

Unless your news organization gives you a generator to bring with you, there are zero places to plug in on the street. While coffee shops can be good options under regular circumstances, nearly every single local business we came across was closing before sunset in order to ensure the safety of its employees in the midst of the demonstrations.

“I would pack as many chargers as you have as possible because you will go through all of them,” Abell says. “Be sure you have some power supply because it doesn’t matter, you know, how much you think you have — everybody’s been running out and trying to plug in wherever you can see a plug.”

Portable wi-fi is also a must, since the citywide curfew means that all businesses have to be shuttered by 10 p.m. and cellular signals have been markedly slow within Baltimore.

6. Don’t assume that rules automatically will apply to you.

The Baltimore Police Department tweeted out a clarification message for journalists about the citywide curfew that took effect Tuesday.

Credentialed members of the MEDIA are exempt from the emergency curfew. Please use caution in the area of police enforcement.

— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) April 29, 2015

According to the message, anyone with credentials was exempt from the curfew.

However, during Tuesday’s protest, police in helicopters above the crowd and surrounding buildings repeatedly instructed members of the media to disperse or else risk arrest. Additionally, the Baltimore mayor showed up to personally urge journalists and protestors, alike, to go home prior to the curfew.

These warnings, combined with the threat of arrest against journalists who remained after the 10 p.m. cutoff, suggests that the curfew’s implementation is dynamic in practice. For this reason, we’d suggest any journalists covering demonstrations with a police presence to exercise an abundance of caution.

7. If you’re traveling with a camera, don’t stick it in anyone’s face without permission.

This should go without saying, but increasing tensions have resulted in increasing assaults on journalists within city limits – including equipment theft and physical assault – so no interview is worth testing the limits of the community’s patience.

8. Show up early and leave late.

Reporting days in Baltimore go by fast, so getting local by late morning or early afternoon will give you more time to scope out interviews with locals, arrange meetings with community leaders and more.

On the flipside, leaving late – especially from protests – can give you a feel for the police-civilian dynamics at play in communities or just give you an opportunity to follow up with someone whose perspective piqued your interest during an event.

“I would treat this as a story that moves on its own rather than one you can move in,” says Reuters’s Goelman. “I would rely on the media and the press relations office of the law enforcement institutions. Follow them on Twitter.”

9. Talk to the people in uniform.

On Tuesday, the Maryland National Guard, Maryland state troopers and Baltimore city police were scattered throughout the city in an attempt to maintain order. The average cop was carrying a gun, zip ties, a nightstick and a Taser gun, while military members were fully suited up and armed. While the equipment may look forbidding, it’s important to understand how law enforcement communication systems work.

Individual police officers usually are discouraged from speaking to the press, but members of the media can direct press requests for everything from interviews to ride-alongs to the department’s Public Information Officer, or PIO. From there, the PIO can route your request down the proper parts of the bureaucratic pipeline, and no one risks getting fired for talking to you.

Maryland National Guard Staff Sergeant Michael Davis, a Public Affairs Officer (PAO), said soldiers are generally briefed on what they are and aren’t allowed to discuss, so any soldier should, theoretically, be approachable by the public. However, he said, the standard practice is first to make a request of a military division’s PAO, but there won’t necessarily be a PAO with every group of National Guard soldiers.

“Most soldiers know what to say, what not to say,” Davis explained. “We’re not gonna give specifics about our mission [or] put ourselves in harm.”

According to Maryland National Guard Sergeant Adam Safley, soldiers are trained to know where to direct journalists to get the information they need.  “If we can’t give you the answer, we’ll help you find the person that can give you the answer,” Safley says.

10. Realize that there is life (and news) after protests.

Media briefings with the mayor and police, prayer vigils and civic-action meetings are just a handful of entry points journalists could cover to expand the Baltimore dialogue past protests. The current controversy began with an arrest,  injury and loss of life, so examining the systems at play in these respective stages of the Freddie Gray story – as well as the long-term impact of his death on his neighborhood and the greater Baltimore area – is crucial to telling it responsibly.

Hear what Deacon Kevin Underdue Sr., a Baltimore preacher, has to say on the subject:

Screenshot of Chelsea Manning’s Twitter page, captured on April 16, 2015.

WASHINGTON — WikiLeaks firestarter Chelsea Manning has found a way to communicate using Twitter from inside the United States Disciplinary Barracks’ maximum-security military prison.

She is currently serving a 35-year sentence for her espionage conviction at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Manning, who was Pvt. Bradley Manning at the time, was convicted of divulging classified emails to Wikileaks. In the case, Manning was also accused of transferring classified DoD video, State Department cables and a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation onto a non-work computer and subsequent dissemination, as well as giving intelligence to enemies of the state.  You can view the charge sheets, published by cryptome.org, here and here.

Manning, who has been tweeting since April 3, 2015, issued a handwritten statement (which she mailed to FitzGibbon Media for subsequent posting to her Twitter account) explaining the setup on April 16.

pic.twitter.com/7lg19yPlRt

— Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) April 16, 2015

As per the statement, Manning “reserved” the Twitter account (with the handle @xychelsea) in 2013, but only asked FitzGibbon Media President and founder Trevor FitzGibbon to build it out a few weeks back.

With help from the organization, a human-rights and entertainment strategic communications firm that also counts WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and rock band System of a Down among its clientele, Manning has begun to maintain an active Twitter presence.

“This is a temporary arrangement until I can find a way to either access my account more easily, or find someone else willing to put in the labor of managing the account, like Courage to Resist or another volunteer,” the April 16 tweeted statement reads.

A senior media strategist with FitzGibbon Media, who provided details about the partnership on background, confirmed its collaboration with Manning and said that the goal is to get Manning’s account “Verified” status.

This status, signified by a small blue check mark on the right side of one’s name as displayed on a Twitter profile page, is a much-coveted badge of social media legitimacy. It essentially says that Twitter has endorsed the user as being the person who she claims to be.

Here is how Chelsea Manning managed to plan a Twitter break:  

The U.S. Army’s Take On the Situation

“What third parties do, the Army has no control over,” said Army spokesman Wayne V. Hall.

According to Hall, “it is inappropriate to release information concerning individual inmates.” However, he confirmed that “inmates in the USDB do not have access to Twitter or the Internet.”

Still, Hall was able to provide insight as to some of the regulations placed upon USDB prisoners.

“Inmates are informed of acceptable methods of communication through the Manual for the Guidance of Inmates (USDB Regulation 600-1, Nov 2013),” he wrote in an email.  “This document provides specific guidance on proper use of the telephone system, contact with news media representatives, written correspondence and visitation policies and procedures. The standards described apply to all inmates confined within the USDB.”

[Editor’s Note: The Medill NSJI filed a FOIA request to obtain a copy of the Manual for the Guidance of Inmates (USDB Regulation 600-1, Nov 2013) on April 17.  If obtained, we will publish the document publicly via Document Cloud.]

According to Hall, USDB inmates have access to a phone system inside prison housing units.  They each get a PIN number and are allowed to add 20 phone numbers to their account — kind of like an in-calling cellphone plan.  He said inmates’ calls have a 30-minute time limit, but that they can make them as frequently as they want as long as they have enough money to cover the cost.

There are some caveats, though:

1. Not everyone gets approved to be on the OK-to-call list.

“Each request submitted by the inmate for telephonic contact is individually evaluated,” Hall explained via email. “However, unless expressly authorized, inmates are not allowed to talk on the telephone with the following: physicians (except those who are part of their legal defense team), Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) sponsors/contacts, college or university staff, commercial sources, halfway houses, congressmen, toll free numbers, former inmates, or friends/family of current or former inmates, and current or former 15th Military Police (MP) Brigade (BDE) staff members.”

2. Phone-call privacy is nearly nonexistent.

According to Hall, the only calls that aren’t monitored are those made between inmates and their lawyers.

3. When it comes to a journalist trying to hear an inmate’s voice, all bets are off.

“Per Army Regulation 190-47, face-to-face and telephonic communications between inmates and members of the news media are not authorized,” he wrote in the email. “Written communications are permitted.”  

View Manning’s entire Twitter feed below, or view it on the site @xychelsea. Tweets by @xychelsea

Earlier this month, the Austin American-Statesman published an exhaustive story from reporter Jeremy Schwartz about a once promising, now troubled Department of Veterans Affairs brain research program in Waco, Texas. A mobile MRI machine was set up in 2008 to much fanfare, but had essentially remained idle due to poor management and mechanical failures ever since. We spoke to Schwartz, who is on the newspaper’s projects team and has focused on military-related issues since 2009.

How did you come upon this story?

I had basically gotten a call out of the blue. I had been writing about the VA and some of their issues on the claims side. They had been having some problems processing their disability claims. I had been writing about that and I think that’s where this gentleman had seen my work.

Jeremy Schwartz/Austin American-Statesman

He called me up. He was an employee at the center and was extremely nervous about his identity being exposed and so fearing retaliation from the VA. He did not want to speak on the record at all. But … he pointed me to a lot of the documents that I would need to get this story. We met and came up with a FOIA (Freedom of Informationa Act) request together. That was invaluable. Even had I just heard that this program was floundering and not producing, it would’ve been hard to come in from the outside and fashion a FOIA request specific enough to get the documents I needed to get. He was just crucial in terms of sitting down with me and going step by step over the documents we would need.

How did that develop into a 10-month investigation?

We met last year, late fall, and put in the requests at the beginning of this year. The VA is not quick on FOIA requests. FOIA requests used to come from the office that you were asking the information from. In the last year or so, I’ve noticed that FOIA requests go to Washington for some vetting, some extra level of somebody putting eyes on your request. That happened in this case. That added probably added a month or two to the wait. The FOIA came back in early May, I believe. As we were waiting I was trying to reach out to other folks who worked at the center.

Did you have a good amount of knowledge about post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury research before this story?

I had been covering military issues since 2009. I had been covering human costs of PTSD and TBI for years. I was familiar with the issues involved. I was much less familiar with the research end of it, specifically how the MRI machine works. I had no idea. That was a steep learning curve. I didn’t think it would be going into it. You have an MRI machine, you have brain scans, you do research. But there was a lot to learn about how MRIs work and how research protocols work at the VA.

In your reporting, did you come across any research going on that did what this program sought to do?

There are quite a few MRI studies out there. There’s a lot of research that use MRIs to look at different parts of the brain and there’s a lot. This patchwork of research going on out there. What made this program exciting is that they were going to do before and after scans of soldiers who are deployed. That is less common. And I did not find other examples of MRI studies of a before-after deployment. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I did find PTSD and TBI studies that aren’t necessarily MRI studies. There was one particularly in San Diego with a Marine unit. They did some really interesting work linking TBI and PTSD. They were able to do that by studying these troops before and after their deployment.

What has the response been on this story?

The congressional response has been pretty strong off the bat. The local delegation here in Texas have asked the VA for some answers for this. The representative in Waco (Republican Rep. Bill Flores) has even floated the idea of shutting this center down because of basically, six years of wasted money and wasted chances. To him, it seems as though they have squandered their chance to do this kind of research. This also builds upon another failed program in Austin. Between the programs, that’s basically wasting 10 years and about $15 million dollars. For them, there’s a loss of patience with the VA. Some in Congress might think this research may be better performed by a different agency. The VA program here has hired a new director and a new researcher in the last few months. We will see what happens.

Where do you think this center might be headed?

They’ve hired somebody to oversee the scanner. The first step will be to get the scanner working. It’s hard to say that it will ever get to that point. With world-class MRI research programs a lot goes into it. There are universities there are other VA facilities there’s a whole infrastructure that is required. There’s a whole staff that is needed to make it work efficiently and productively. That will be the VA’s challenge, to set something up. You can’t do MRI research half-heartedly. You have to set up an actual program. They aren’t there yet, but it will take an investment on their part. If Congress or the local congressional delegation is not convinced that is going to pay off then I think I think it’s possible that this research will go somewhere else.

What was your biggest challenge during the course of reporting this story?

We got the FOIA back and we got 1,000 pages of stuff, which was great stuff. But the challenge then is to use that and put that into context. You need human intelligence to back it up. The challenge with this was to find employees and old employees of the center to talk. And it’s a small center. There’s not a large pool to draw from. It took some time to convince people to speak with me. There’s a lot of fear out there, even people who don’t work with the VA anymore. That was the challenge. I think a lot of the challenge on a lot of these FOIA-driven projects is getting that flipside and getting the people on the inside to talk to you.