On the evening of January 14, North News editor David Pierini was putting a pizza into the oven when he received a call about a shooting in north Minneapolis by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Ditching dinner, he and reporter Azhae’la Hanson rushed to 24th and Lyndale Avenue N., where protesters had gathered at the scene.
Pierini and Hanson, who also write and take photographs for North News, reported on the ground for nearly four hours, wearing winter gear but without safety equipment. When chemicals released by federal agents turned the night air a toxic green, they were forced to leave.
The duo’s quick write-up of the events, with colleague Melody Hoffmann, helped break the news of one more flashpoint in a major national story. It also led to a large change in their small newsroom: Within 48 hours, North News had received two $10,000 grants – money they put in part toward ballistic vests and helmets meant to slow projectiles.
For Hanson, Pierini and their colleagues in Twin Cities local media, Operation Metro Surge upended life and work over the winter of 2025-26. For many of them, work never returned to a pre-surge ‘normal.’ Instead, the unprecedented events led newsrooms to shift their focus in ways that haven’t been undone. From changes in editorial practices to safety protocols unimaginable months earlier to a renewed sense of journalistic community, OMS left an indelible mark on the Twin Cities media landscape.
Operation Metro Surge started in early December, 2025, with several hundred federal agents deployed to speed the government’s immigration enforcement efforts. At its peak, more than 4,000 agents swarmed the state, clustered in the Twin Cities but with a strong presence in parts of Greater Minnesota, as well.
On Jan. 7, an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis. Then on Jan. 24, two U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. Throughout, journalists worked alongside protesters and citizen observers, facing federal officers’ aggressive tactics, including the frequent deployment of chemical agents.
Many of the journalists I spoke with for this story said that covering OMS felt in some ways similar to covering the protests that erupted following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, but not the same. This time, federal law enforcement repeatedly used live ammunition and lethal force; they routinely used (and misused) chemical irritants at dangerously close range; and they offered little indication they intended to leave.
Newsroom staff felt shaken and often overwhelmed during the surge, which lasted into March. Reporters and editors worked overtime to keep up with the endless news, with some publishing nearly double their usual story load.
Leaders at the Sahan Journal, which employs seven reporters and two visual journalists and is focused on immigrant communities, made decisions designed to support staff members’ well-being and focus the outlet’s news coverage. They prioritized stories that involved use of force, for example, or impacted multiple individuals. For Chao Xiong, Sahan’s editorial director, that meant revising and revisiting newsroom policies and practices.
“We had to really understand how to use our limited resources effectively,” Xiong said.
The news overload led many organizations, including Sahan, to hone in on their audience, sometimes passing on breaking news and bigger-picture stories like those published by the New York Times and National Public Radio. The moves allowed smaller newsrooms to focus on their core readership and save their reporters from burnout.
“I was looking for alternative stories to deepen the coverage in our ecosystem,” Xiong said. “So, telling more personal stories, telling stories that also highlight how people are making a difference positively during the time … and those kinds of stories were just a great antidote to the other news at the time.”
Beyond shifts in pacing and news judgement, newsroom leaders were forced quickly to evaluate reporter safety protocols and brush up on constitutional rights and legal strategies.
Most organizations had basic safety gear packed away or left over from other high-intensity reporting. But still, they required additional trainings and gear to face the heightened threats brought on by the surge. Max Nesterak, deputy editor and reporter for the Minnesota Reformer, said his newsroom brought ballistic goggles used in 2020 out of retirement. Emily Peterson, vice president and general counsel for the Minnesota Star Tribune, said the surge forced major changes to reporter preparation.
“It’s the sort of training that 10 or 15 years ago would have only been given to journalists working in conflict zones abroad, but now it’s something we had to do,” Peterson said.
From a legal standpoint, OMS triggered additional challenges as journalists encountered federal agents during their reporting. Journalists Georgia Fort and Don Lemon were arrested in St. Paul after covering an anti-ICE protest at Cities Church.
To prepare for the possibility of arrest, local journalists memorized attorneys’ phone numbers, sometimes writing them on their arm with a permanent marker.
Isabella Salomão Nascimento, a senior associate at Ballard Spahr LLP, was one of several lawyers to provide newsrooms with emergency legal training. Previously, she said, trainings had involved lawyers walking journalists through specific, hypothetical scenarios and possible outcomes. During the height of the surge, however, trainings adapted to the times.
“You get to something like Metro Surge and that standard of practice goes out the window,” Salomão Nascimento said, explaining that she and her colleagues found themselves needing to give “crash courses in First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment law, privacy law, trespass statutes” and more. “You’re saying ‘I need to give you a whole gamut of everything that I could possibly give you in one succinct training.’”
The Minnesota Journalism Center, based at the University of Minnesota, quickly added legal, safety and mental health trainings to their array of offerings designed to connect and support newsrooms across the state. Meg Martin, who was an editor at Minnesota Public Radio before joining MJC as its associate director, worked around the clock to coordinate, sometimes calling on colleagues in other states and countries for advice and expertise.
Trainings included “Legal Rights and Risks for Journalists Covering Immigration Enforcement,” Stay Safe on Any Assignment: Situational Awareness Training for Journalists,” and “Trauma, Regulation and Empowerment During Turbulent Times.”
In part because of MJC’s work to keep journalists safe and informed, news organizations banded together in unprecedented ways. According to Xiong, newsrooms quickly began to share resources, including photos and reporting.
Because smaller news organizations focused on their unique audiences, leaders were less worried about being scooped and more concerned about telling meaningful stories.
“We kind of all have the same feeling that we just need to share – we need to amplify each other’s content,” said Pierini of North News. He didn’t hesitate to give tips to other newsrooms, he said, when his team chose to pass on a story.
Those connections formed between newsrooms aren’t likely to fade, said Martin. She realized at some point during the surge, she said, that much of the competition between newsrooms had been suspended for the sake of keeping each other safe.
“We’ve asked a lot of our people in service of news and journalism specifically,” she said. “And I think I’ve just been really impressed.”
Lily Kopp is a student at the University of Iowa and a MinnPost 2026 summer reporting intern.
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