(Dale Kasler is a reporter for the Sacramento Bee covering climate change, the environment, economics and the California water crisis. )
“I was covering a protest march over a police shooting and found myself being detained by Sacramento police officers as part of a mass arrest they conducted (about 80 people were arrested). I don’t want to oversell this as some sort of act of heroism. I happened to be standing in the middle of the march when the police swooped in and started arresting people. They weren’t particularly impressed with the press credential hanging around my neck. Anyway, they were polite about the whole thing and let me go an hour later (the others spent about two hours in custody), but it got me to thinking about the role the press plays in our society and our democracy, particularly at a time when the newspaper industry is going through such turmoil. We have a role to play, to bear witness to what’s happening in the world.”
- “I’ve written tons of stories over the years about public policy issues, and I think there’s a good chance that some of my work has ‘moved the needle’ on some issues […] but it’s a frustrating reality that, often nothing happens, even if the story is widely read. “
- “I wish people understood how much we struggle to make our stories fair. We’re human, and we all bring our biases to whatever story we’re working on. But nobody sets out to write a biased story.”
(Edited by Tess Varga)
