It's hard to believe our nation has sunk so low that journalists are prevented from doing their job. These detentions put a chill on news gathering and greatly harm our democracy. Compare what happened in St Paul to events at Obama's acceptance speech in Denver which I attended.

When Obama spoke the city and the nation stopped to listen and although I guess there were some arrests of protesters earlier on in the week journalists were not among them as far as I know. They were respected and allowed to do their job.

There was one guy I saw who was grabbed and hustled away when he tried to go back in after he had exited the stadium but I don't think he was arrested or a journalist. Some volunteers were having to come and go in order to help disabled in wheelchairs leave the event so that may have contributed to some confusion as people left and tried to find people they had come with.

I hope America wakes up and decides before it's too late which type of world they want to live in. One where people have fun and don't need constant threat of arrest or one where even journalists need to fear where they go and what they say.

Although we have been focusing specifically on journalist arrests, many journalists also report being injured by police. The video of Nicole Salazar being thrown to the ground by police is perhaps the most vivid example of this abuse caught on video, but other reports are surfacing now as well. This report comes from "City Pages" (http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/2008/09/breaking_tensio.php)

City Pages Reporters Maced, Assaulted at RNC Protest

Updating their reporting every few minutes by telephone last night, City Pages' Jeff Shaw and Andy Mannix say they were "assaulted by the cops" while trying to cover a RNC protest march. Here's the play-by-play, from Shaw: "The police said we needed to leave, we showed them our press credentials. I said I was a reporter and that it was a public street. An officer struck me and knocked me backwards over a curb. I tried to get up, and three or four officers shoved me to the ground. Andy was maced." Meanwhile, The Stranger's Brendan Kiley was pepper-sprayed earlier this week at the RNC. "I've hurt myself in a lot of different ways," he reports, "but nothing hurts like pepper spray. The pain is fleeting, but it is crippling."