Street Protesters: Who Are They, Really? with Jeremy Lee Quinn

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2025

⏱️ 84 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Photojournalist Jeremy Lee Quinn has spent years documenting protests, rallies, and moments of public unrest that often look very different on the ground than they do on the evening news. In this conversation, he talks with Meghan about what really happens when a “mostly peaceful protest” turns chaotic, how viral clips can erase context, and why the incentives of freelance journalism can skew coverage. They also discuss what it takes to build trust with sources across ideological divides, the ethics of filming in volatile environments, and how ordinary viewers can tell when the narrative doesn’t match reality.

Topics include:

• The gap between local experience and national headlines

• “Mostly peaceful” framing vs. street-level truth

• Freelance journalism, safety, and incentives

• Crossing lines without becoming the story

• Why viral video is a poor substitute for context

• What citizens should know about media literacy

About the guest
Jeremy Lee Quinn is a photojournalist and reporter who has covered protests and political unrest since 2020. His forthcoming book is Culture of Confusion. He posts most actively as @JeremyReporter (Instagram, Facebook) and also writes on Substack and X/Twitter.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	My question to the anti-fascist is, if you really are sincere about a movement, why aren't
0:05.6	you open about what you're doing if your cause is just and so forth?
0:09.2	Doesn't this all help Trump?
0:11.9	It all comes down to this question to me.
0:14.8	My fears that this will get Trump reelected, which I believe that it eventually did, that
0:20.5	the media's inability to report on this becomes a liability,
0:25.6	not just for the left, but for the media itself.
0:29.8	Why are we seeing these things happen online and nobody's telling us what it is?
0:40.0	Welcome to the Unpeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dow. When it comes to the subject
0:46.0	of violence in political protests in American cities over the last decade, I have often found
0:52.5	myself very confused, and I suspect you suffer from a similar
0:56.9	confusion sometimes. I ask myself who these protesters are exactly. Are they regular activists
1:04.4	who've gotten a little overactivated? Are they paid protesters? Are they Antifa? Are they Black
1:10.8	Block? And what do those terms mean anyway? Are they Antifa? Are they Black Block?
1:11.5	And what do those terms mean anyway?
1:13.5	What's the difference?
1:14.9	My guest this week is photojournalist Jeremy Lee Quinn.
1:19.4	He has spent the last five years documenting protests and riots across the country.
1:24.6	He was in Santa Monica in 2020.
1:27.1	He's covered Portland. He covered the recent
1:29.6	unrest in Los Angeles following the ice raids. And he is a really good source when it comes to
1:35.7	this subject. In his forthcoming book, Culture of Confusion, he explores how militant tactics
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Meghan Daum, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Meghan Daum and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.