J-School student reporter attacked and robbed during Oakland protests

On Wednesday, November 9, second-year graduate student Kyle Merrit Ludowitz was attacked and robbed of his photographic equipment in Oakland, California during the protests against the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Ludowitz was wearing his laminated press pass at the time of the attack.

“We at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism believe that in a democratic society freedom of the press should be one of the most cherished rights,” said Ken Light, Logan Professor of Documentary Photojournalism. “It is reprehensible that one of our student photojournalists, wearing his press credentials, was attacked by a group of masked and black-cloaked protesters. Our photographer was punched, then pushed down and repeatedly kicked in the head, which caused a bone fracture to his face. They also grabbed and took his equipment as he was screaming that he was a journalist. Journalists must be able to cover events openly and freely, or we have no democracy.”

Ludowitz, the Jim Marshall Fellow in Photography at the Graduate School of Journalism specializes in international conflicts, humanitarian disasters, and war, and has traveled across the world to document, by photograph and dispatch, critical situations in Syria, Israel/Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Myanmar, Cambodia, Kashmir, Thailand, India, and Nepal.

This is the first time he has been injured while reporting in the U.S.