“It’s very violent out there”
 October 21, 2025 Greetings, Meteor readers, If you’re reading this, you’ve survived the great AWS outage of 2025. We salute you.  In today’s newsletter, we learn what it’s like to be a journalist in an occupied American city. Plus, the home renovation seen ‘round the world. Shannon Melero  WHAT’S GOING ONTiffany Walden, like so many Americans, is mentally, physically, existentially, and utterly tired. She’s a Chicago-based journalist and editor-in-chief of The Triibe, a local outlet covering Chicago’s Black and Latine communities. Walden and her team have been working non-stop since late August, when President Trump first started threatening to send troops to Chicago. Although those troops didn’t manifest in the way Trump was threatening, Walden calls what is happening now—a heightened militarized presence in residential areas—an occupation. “I know journalism is and has been behind in naming a spade a spade,” she says, “But we need to call things what they are. There are masked agents in camouflage carrying [weapons] and deploying tear gas on residential blocks.” And for journalists whose job it is to be on those blocks, the experience is intense.“We are a city that will resist,” says Walden. “I personally feel called to act in this moment and to document this moment, specifically for our audience,” But even so, “our team is a little bit scared,” she says. One of her reporters was teargassed by a federal agent while reporting in a nearby neighborhood, she says, and “we’re seeing some of our peers be doxxed by this administration.” This is unfortunately becoming a common experience for journalists, as the U.S. creeps slowly towards authoritarianism and, as the International Women’s Media Foundation reports, journalists are facing increased violence. (Even before this administration, the IWMF found, more than a third of women journalists surveyed had been threatened with physical violence—or had experienced it.) There have been a number of instances where federal agents have injured journalists with impunity, something Walden has witnessed firsthand. “We have helmets, goggles, gas masks, bulletproof vests…you could have all the training, but things happen so fast in places you don’t expect them to happen. It’s easy to still be caught off guard.” It may be difficult for many of us to truly understand the threats journalists are under—especially amid reports of so many peaceful protests coming out of the recent No Kings weekend. Surely if hundreds of thousands of people can gather successfully with no incident, things can’t be all that bad? “No Kings is a vibe fest,” Walden explains. “Everyone is trying to have the cutest sign…life is too serious to do that right now.” But she does see some value. “I recognize that everybody is not in a position to put their body on the line in the same way that other people are,” she says referring to the higher levels of violence at protests outside of ICE facilities or in neighborhoods that are being raided. “I respect that [No Kings] is an option for people who are not prepared for that,” she says. “Because at other protests, like [what we saw] in Broadview, [federal agents] are out there tear-gassing anybody. It’s very violent out there.” “I don’t know what the end of all this looks like,” Walden says, “But I’ll be very thrilled when we get to it.” AND:
 GOD’S GIFT TO THE ART OF BALLET (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
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