CNN’s Journalists Forget How to Read

A couple days ago, the Washington Post published an article which spelled out some uncomfortable realities about tactics being used by anti-ICE protesters. Specifically, the article made clear that using a car to obstruct ICE crossed a line from standard, non-violent protest into something else.

Federal court rulings say citizens can observe and record police activity in public areas as part of their First Amendment rights, and many of the observers are doing nothing more than that.

But as officers and agents employ aggressive tactics, some activists have blown whistles to warn community members of approaching law enforcement, tried to follow immigration enforcement vehicles or used their own cars to block the roadways — entering murkier legal territory. Some legal experts said such behavior could in theory justify obstruction-of-justice charges, but they added that any such prosecution would be unusual…

David Loy, legal director of the nonprofit First Amendment Coalition, said that members of the public have the right to blow whistles or follow ICE vehicles at a sufficient distance and alert members of their community, but that protesters cannot physically stop an officer from doing his or her job.

“It doesn’t create a right to commit traffic violations or physically attempt to block a law enforcement vehicle,” he said. “But there is a right to follow and document what they’re doing.”

As I pointed out Monday, the Post really bends over backwards to avoid applying all of this insight to Renee Good, who had parked her car sideways in the street to obstruct the movement of ICE vehicles. Nevertheless, the outlines of the law do apply and what they suggest is that Good was crossing a legal line by creating a traffic jam as a form of protest.

Today, CNN takes a stab at writing, essentially, the same story. It’s titled “New documents shed light on Renee Good’s ties to ICE monitoring efforts in Minneapolis” but the gist of the article is that most of the anti-ICE tactics being recommended in documents spread at her son’s school were legal protest behavior.

The woman killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis last week served on the board of her son’s school, which linked to documents encouraging parents to monitor ICE and directing them to training.

The documents shed new light on Renee Good’s connection to efforts to monitor and potentially disrupt ICE operations – an association that federal officials have made clear is at the center of their review into the deadly incident that occurred as she partially blocked ICE agents in the street with her SUV.

But four legal experts who reviewed the documents for CNN said they largely describe nonviolent civil disobedience tactics practiced at American protests for generations – far from the sinister depiction of extremism and domestic terrorism portrayed by Trump administration officials like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President JD Vance.

There’s a bit of a gimmick here because CNN’s experts are reviewing the documents posted by the school, not the training people are being directed toward and not other documents being spread by anti-ICE groups that Renee Good allegedly was affiliated with. For instance, MN ICE Watch was distributing information on de-arresting people, i.e. physically scuffling with ICE agents.

Look at the training “MN Ice Watch” (which Renee Good belonged to) gives:

They train activists to assault law enforcement, to swarm, pressure, and open their car doors.

And they say each “de-arrest” is a “micro-intifada.” Do with that what you will.

H/t @StrackHaley pic.twitter.com/5TjXzJfljy

— Matt Whitlock (@MattWhitlock) January 11, 2026

But even putting all of that aside and sticking to the small subset of material posted by the school, some of the advice offered in the documents did go beyond standard protest tactics. CNN’s three authors on this story decided to handle that by pretending they don’t know how to read. [emphasis added]

Another guide linked to in the training document stresses nonviolent responses to ICE agents, while also encouraging a refusal to “comply with demands, requests, and orders.” It suggests “creative tactics,” noting that “Crowds, props, traffic, and noise can make detentions difficult, sometimes ICE vehicles can’t move (‘whoops!’).” It does not specifically suggest blocking operations with a vehicle.

 So the documents they’ve just said contained standard protest tactics also mentioned creating traffic such that “ICE vehicles can’t move (‘whoops!’).” And still, CNN feels it’s appropriate to add an explainer at the end of the paragraph that reads, “It does not specifically suggest blocking operations with a vehicle.”

Sorry, CNN but that’s exactly what it suggests. That’s what the ‘whoops!’ at the end of the sentence means. It means they are winking at the reader, telling them to do something while pretending they aren’t really recommending it. Did the authors who wrote this and the editors who read it forget how to read?

I even asked Google’s AI to explain what the word ‘whoops!’ meant in the context of thiis sentence. Here was it’s response:

In the context of 2026 community resistance against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the word “whoops!” indicates strategic sarcasm. It is used to describe deliberate acts of obstruction—such as stalling vehicles or creating “traffic jams”—while feigning that these obstacles are accidental or beyond the protesters’ control.

Why is CNN bending over backwards to pretend the training doesn’t say what it says? The reason is obvious and the article gets to the point a few paragraphs later.

Good was partially blocking a street with her SUV on Wednesday as ICE agents operated in the area. An ICE officer who was filming Good shot her after she started to accelerate her SUV…

Gregory Magarian, a professor and First Amendment expert at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said that the noncooperation tactics described in the guide could potentially violate some laws depending on the context of the situation. But overall, he said, the document endorsed standard nonviolent protest actions that don’t merit an investigation by federal law enforcement.

So even CNN vaguely recognizes that some tactics “could potentially violate some laws.” Which tactics? CNN doesn’t say, but based on the Washington Post story I quoted above we already know which tactics cross a line. You can follow ICE, blow whistles and film but you can’t create traffic jams to obstruct their movements. You can’t do the very thing Renee Good was doing in the minutes before she was shot.

At least the Post was willing to tell readers where the legal line was, even if they wouldn’t admit Good had crossed it. CNN barely looks at what these protesters are being trained to do and concludes most of it is normal. And when it comes to creating traffic jams, they claim the training doesn’t say protests should do that even though that’s clearly what the document suggests (‘whoops!’). The entire CNN story is written as a defense of Renee Good rather than an objective assessment of the groups she was involved with, the training they offer, the law or her individual behavior. This is just more resistance journalism.

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