Accountability Requires Infrastructure: What Funders Can Learn From Minnesota

What’s unfolding in Minneapolis shows why communities need trusted journalism systems in place before a crisis hits.

The first casualty of war is the truth—unless truthtellers are on the ground.

In Minnesota, they are. And they are reporting what they see.

Over the past month of federal immigration enforcement operations across Minneapolis, St. Paul, and beyond, independent journalists, community outlets, freelancers, legal observers, organizers, and residents have documented what is happening. Through video, livestreams, and firsthand reporting, they have created a public record that surfaces critical details, challenges official accounts, and debunks false narratives.

We saw it with the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. We have seen it repeatedly as eyewitness documentation contradicts claims made by federal authorities.

This work did not emerge by accident. It exists because Minnesota has a decentralized network of community-rooted journalists embedded in their communities—trusted, present, and prepared when power moves quickly.

At The Pivot Fund, this is the work we are focused on strengthening: independent, community-rooted journalism infrastructure that does not disappear when newsrooms are understaffed, under-resourced, or shut out.

What Minnesota illustrates is a reality Pivot partners describe nationwide: accountability depends on whether communities already have trusted information networks in place before a crisis hits.

When events unfold rapidly, the first draft of the public record is increasingly created by local networks of journalists and residents with phones and cameras. This documentation does not replace journalism. It expands what journalism can verify, investigate, and preserve—if infrastructure exists to support it.

Press Freedom Under Pressure: The Georgia Fort Case

The arrests of independent journalists Georgia Fort and Don Lemon underscore how fragile press freedom has become.

Fort, the founder of BLCK Press, is a trusted information steward in the Minneapolis–St. Paul community. Her arrest was not just an attack on one journalist. It threatened the health of the entire local news ecosystem.

After her release from federal custody, Fort warned that attacks on Black journalists are intensifying and that criminalizing reporting represents a dangerous escalation. “Attacking the press is not simply just attacking journalists,” she said during an interview with Rachel Maddow, “It’s attacking the public’s right to know. … I do believe that this is an information war.”

In Fort’s first statement following her release from federal custody, she posed a question that still hangs over this moment: “Do we have a Constitution?”

Community members and a broad coalition of First Amendment defenders mobilized quickly. 

Within hours of her arrest, a large group of supporters gathered and demanded her release at a news conference in Minneapolis City Hall, across the street from the federal courthouse.

Rod Adams, founder and executive director of the New Justice Project, praised Fort and warned: “You can lock up a truthteller, but you can’t lock up the truth. …  The first sign of a crumbling democracy is an attack on free speech.”

Legal experts and journalists across the country condemned the case as an unconstitutional attempt to chill protected speech.

Despite this, Fort remains focused on her work. “I’m committed to continuing to tell the stories,” she said.

The Power of the Public Record

Recent cases show why community documentation matters.

In Alex Pretti’s death, bystander video contradicted official claims before they could harden into fact.

After Renee Good’s death, eyewitness footage raised questions about official accounts and prompted accountability demands. Fort later hosted a private media briefing to share sensitive material with major outlets—while withholding public release until the family consented.

It was a trauma-informed editorial decision that preserved both dignity and evidence.

Soon after, another incident showed ICE agents pulling a disabled woman from her vehicle. Officials called her an “agitator.” Another bystander video showed she was stuck in traffic. Without that footage, the official narrative might have stood.

The lesson is not that everyone needs to livestream. It’s that when communities document events, publishers can verify, contextualize, and hold systems accountable—if relationships and systems are already in place. This is journalism infrastructure in practice: trusted relationships, ethical judgment, and systems capable of handling sensitive material under pressure.

Recording as Civic Infrastructure

What’s happening in Minnesota is not unique.

Across the U.S., independent documentation has reshaped public understanding of protests, policing, and enforcement actions. These recordings surface moments institutional reporting often cannot reach quickly or might not publish unedited.

As photographer Timothy Benston writes: “The state can survive outrage. … What it cannot survive is a stubborn record that circulates, persists, and reappears.”

This infrastructure does not replace journalism. It strengthens it.

What This Means for Funders

Minneapolis highlights a shift funders must pay attention to: accountability depends on whether communities have resourced, trusted information networks in place before crisis hits.

Community documentation is already shaping the public record. Whether it strengthens accountability or creates confusion depends on the infrastructure behind it—secure intake systems, verification capacity, legal and safety support, and editorial judgment rooted in trust.

Funders make this possible by investing not just in stories, but in the systems that allow journalists to work under pressure.

In moments of crisis, those systems are the difference between noise and a durable public record.

Journalism doesn’t fail in crises. It fails before crises, when infrastructure is missing.

Why Pivot Is Sharing This

We’re publishing this because Minneapolis reflects a wider shift.

In moments of conflict or enforcement, accountability depends on whether communities can build a record that outlasts press releases and holds up under scrutiny.

Pivot’s partners—and many independent publishers beyond our network—make that possible not because they have endless resources, but because they are trusted, close to the story, and built for the moment. That is why investing in community-rooted journalism isn’t optional. It is infrastructure. It is what communities rely on when the stakes are highest.