Lynne Adrine, director of the D.C. Graduate Program and adjunct professor of broadcast and digital journalism in the Newhouse School, wrote an op-ed for Syracuse.com titled “After Capitol breach, it will be even harder to protest in Washington.” Adrine has worked in Washington, D.C., her entire career, with 16 years at ABC News in Washington and time at other networks.
From a young age, Adrine knew she wanted to live and work in the nation’s capital. As a teen Adrine visited the Capitol for the first time and witnessed citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to protest. The trip was held shortly after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Adrine was in awe of the citizens who were there demanding change in the wake of his death. “These people took their anger, outrage and sadness at King’s murder and focused it on action,” Adrine writes.
Adrine recalls the start of her career in Washington, D.C., with various internships and her first position working for Ohio Rep. Louis Stokes, the founder of the Congressional Black Caucus. Her career expanded, working for media outlets to cover congressional hearings and interview elected officials, and eventually making her way into academia with the Newhouse School.
After spending her entire career in D.C., Adrine says she has seen the restrictions to the government greatly increase. Adrine writes that the recent attacks on the Capitol building will contribute further to the tightening restrictions. “The people’s right to petition their government grows ever more narrow,” says Adrine.
