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I got arrested. Another reporter was punched.
The common thread? We
Ben Jacobs got punched. I got arrested. Times
are tough for journalists.
Ive been a reporter for 30 years. In that time, Ive
covered hurricanes and mine disasters, and
interviewed people who were sure they were
committing professional suicide by talking to
me.
Who knew that asking a technical question
about health insurance regulations would
be the one to get me in trouble with the
police?
West Virginia, my home state, is solid
Trump country Donald Trump won
about 75 percent of the vote here. But
when it comes to health insurance, our
population depends on Obamacare, a
policy the Trump administration wants to
repeal.
On May 9, I went to the West Virginia Capitol
to ask Secretary of Health and Human Services
Tom Price about how the Republican health care
bill would aect West Virginians. After asking Price
a question in the hallway, I was arrested. The
ocial reason was causing a disturbance by
yelling questions. The capitol police handcued
and fingerprinted me and sent me o to jail, where
I sat in an orange jumpsuit until I was bailed out
by my network, the Public News Service, a
member-supported news radio network.
At the time, I assumed my arrest was some kind of
aberration.
Then last week, Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs
was body-slammed by Montana congressional
candidate Greg Gianforte. His glasses were
shattered. Gianforte went on to win the election.
Both of these incidents garnered widespread
media attention. To my astonishment, Ive found
myself subject to that most 21st-century
phenomenon becoming a hot topic on the
internet and social media.
Within the eight-hour span I was imprisoned after
my arrest, #FreeDanHeyman went viral on Twitter.
Soon it was joined by #DanHeyman and
#StandWithDan. The ACLU of West Virginia called
my arrest a blatant attempt to chill an
independent, free press, adding, This is a
dangerous time in our country. Even conservative
radio host Hugh Hewitt weighed in, chastising
Price for my arrest: I know we can be jerks, and I
know we can yell, etc., but we shouldnt be
arrested even when we are totally o-the-charts
screaming at people."
Jacobs got a similar response: Internet fans
quickly launched a GoFundMe campaign, raising
more than $7,500 for replacement glasses.
Jacobss broken pair was sent to the Newseum
for display.
Much of this reaction seems to be rooted in the
fact that Jacobs and I were doing our jobs
trying to get answers from public ocials about
public policy in a public place. Most people Ive
heard from strongly want us to keep doing that
in the love/hate tug-of-war between the media
and public servants, regular folks look likely to
side with openness. Our cases seem to have
stirred peoples fears about the free press being
undermined.
But thats just one element to this story. Theres
something else that connects my arrest and
Jacobss assault we both were in deep-red
states asking GOP ocials about the Republican
health care bill.
Its an issue that politicians in Trump country dont
seem to want to talk about.
The question that led to my arrest
Trump won West Virginia by the second-highest
margin in the country, in large part because
Democrats are seen as undermining the coal
industry. But West Virginia has also really
benefited from the Aordable Care Act, more
than nearly any other state. Since Obamacare
asked about health care.
went into eect, the state decided to expand
Medicaid. The rate of uninsured here has fallen by
57 percent.
One way the people of West Virginia have
benefited from the Aordable Care Act is its
elimination of preexisting conditions as a reason
for losing or paying a lot more for coverage. I was
particularly interested in writing about how that
issue would aect domestic violence victims.
Before the ACA, some domestic violence victims
had trouble getting or being able to aord health
insurance because their mental or physical
injuries, or the domestic violence itself, were
considered a preexisting condition. I wanted to
know whether, if AHCA passed the Senate, those
days could return.
As I was working on my story, I heard Tom Price
would be at the state capitol for an unrelated
meeting. It struck me as a perfect opportunity to
ask him about preexisting conditions and the
American Health Care Act. I figured out when his
meeting was, and planted myself inside the
entryway to the main hallway of the building. I
waited for him to come in, turned my smartphone
to record, and tried to buttonhole him.
When I saw him coming, I asked, Would
domestic violence count as a preexisting
condition under the AHCA?
Price didnt answer. I must have repeated the
question four times before the capitol police
arrested me. They later told me that the men in
suits I assumed were Prices sta were Secret
Service, there to protect Kellyanne Conway. I had
no idea Conway was even going to be there, and
wasnt interested in talking to her. I was accused
of aggressively breaching the Secret Service
agents. But I wasnt trying to breach anybody. I
was just trying to get my phone close enough to
record a response to my question.
If Price had told me, No comment, or, for that
matter, if the capitol police had told me to knock it
o, you wouldnt be reading this today. But maybe
because someone was afraid of protests against
the AHCA, I ended up in an orange jumpsuit.
At least Ben Jacobs, the Guardian reporter
assaulted in Montana, got his broken glasses
replaced.
The recent attacks on press reveal a GOP
sensitive spot: health care
It might be premature to read a broad political
trend into what happened to both Jacobs and me.
And there have been other incidents of attacks on
the press that have nothing to do with health care.
A reporter was roughed up and thrown out of a
Federal Communications Commission meeting in
May, and a state senator slapped a journalist in
www.greenfuse.work
the Alaska state capitol a few weeks back. Former
Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields just recounted
for the New York Times how she was manhandled
and yanked around during the presidential
campaign.
The Committee to Protect Journalists
keeps a record of these kinds of incidents.
These show that while there are attacks on
the press in this country, it is very, very rare
for reporters to be assaulted or to get into
trouble while asking questions of an
ocial. More common are cases where
reporters covering demonstrations get
arrested along with the protesters, or
where journalists get into trouble with
prosecutors and judges for refusing to
reveal secret sources to investigators in a
criminal case.
The dierence now is the raw level of
political conflict, and one of the places
where that plays out most clearly is in the
health care debate in parts of the country that
voted for Trump.
A few days after my arrest, Price wrote an op-ed
in our local newspaper about the opioid epidemic.
There was, of course, no mention of his encounter
with me, but there was another topic missing in
his article the American Health Care Act. I
believe he was exercising message discipline. He
came to Charleston on what his oce described
as a listening tour about the opioid crisis. He
only answered four questions while in town, and
he only talked about Medicaid in the context of
substance abuse treatment, not in the context of
what would happen to it if the AHCA passed.
A few weeks later, Jacobs would get
body-slammed in Montana for asking about the
Congressional Budget Oce score showing
Trumpcare would cut 23 million more people o
from health insurance.
People are scared about losing insurance. Theyve
been organizing and showing up in the town halls
of GOP representatives across the country. And
these politicians dont want these voices of anger
to get out. After a series of ugly town halls during
the first congressional recess in February (heres a
list), GOP members of Congress have been
refusing to appear in front of their constituents,
scheduling fewer town halls. Instead of facing
crowds of yelling, booing, and jeering citizens,
some have been holding tele-town halls, where
the questions can be carefully screened and the
mood tends to be more subdued than it would be
if the questioners were all in one room.
The old saying goes that the scandal doesnt get
you; the cover-up does. That may or may not be
true, but its worth keeping an eye on which policy
disputes animate the divisions in our fractious
politics where the hot buttons are. Watergate
may have been animated by Richard Nixons
paranoia, but Nixons paranoia was animated by
his fears about the antiwar movement. And
Nixons covert crew of operators who
orchestrated Watergate was created to deal with
information leaks such as the Pentagon Papers,
an embarrassing revelation about war. I believe
health care is similar for some current Republicans
fear of the unpopularity of their bill is leading
them to avoid town halls and refuse to answer
reporters questions.
Buttonholing is really about geography it uses
public space to break through message discipline.
So its natural that the during a time when
Republicans are trying to control messaging
around their health care bill, conflicts would erupt
in these uncontrolled public spaces. If message
discipline is broken, here is what the constituents
of West Virginia, Montana, or these other states
will hear that 23 million more people would be
without insurance, largely in the states that voted
for Trump. For many in these states, its a
life-or-death issue.
Dan Heyman