How exhausted Minneapolis journalists are covering a prolonged federal crackdown

Journalists are drawing on lessons from 2020 as they navigate safety concerns, misinformation and a sustained federal presence

While local journalists in Minneapolis are no strangers to covering difficult news, protests and civil unrest, it’s been a long season in the city.

“We’ve had political assassinations. We had a multi-fatality school shooting, and now the largest immigration crackdown in American history has all happened in Minneapolis in the last eight months,” said Liz Sawyer, a reporter at The Minnesota Star Tribune. “So people are generally exhausted and overwhelmed both in the newsroom and in the community.”

The intensity of the moment — marked by the federal immigration enforcement surge and the fatal shootings of two Minneapolis residents by federal agents — has stretched local newsrooms in ways that feel distinct from past crises. Journalists who reported on the mass protests after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 said that they’ve applied the lessons from that period — about safety, verification and community trust — to the current moment.