Bulletproof vests and gas masks: Journalists prep for Inauguration Day - CNN

"My goal is to protect my staff, protect my reporters and make sure that everybody is taken care of."

According to a bulletin obtained last week by CNN, the FBI has received information indicating "armed protests" are being planned at all 50 state capitols and the US Capitol in Washington in the days leading up to Biden's inauguration.

Wire will be much more prepared for violence at Wednesday's inauguration: The LA Times sent her a bulletproof vest, helmet, goggles and a gas mask — all of which she's never worn on the field before.

Covering the inauguration is typically "very predictable," said Tracy Grant, a 27-year veteran of The Washington Post, where she serves as a managing editor.

Jarrad Henderson, senior multimedia producer at USA Today who is Black, said he was feeling "a little anxious" about the inauguration.

It's in communities large and small, in all 50 states."

Grant said that all reporters covering Inauguration Day for the Post will get a refresher on a training program that teaches them how to make decisions in contentious situations.

More than 3,000 Gannett journalists listened to a panel last Wednesday where Henderson and others who were at the Capitol and had covered other protests shared their expertise.

Amalie Nash, senior vice president of local news at USA Today Network, recalled staff members asking, "If I have long hair, should I think about putting it up because it could make me a target and I could be dragged by my hair?"; "What's the best way to file if my phone has gone down?"; "What is the best way to get out of a situation if it turns volatile?"

McLeod of BuzzFeed News said he will be wearing running shoes on Inauguration Day along a bulletproof vest and a backpack storing a helmet, a respirator mask and goggles.

For Inauguration Day, McLeod said he plans to not wear anything that could identify him as a member of the press.

"For all of the pageantry and theater of booing the media, when you go up to talk to people afterward, in my experience, they'd actually been pretty polite," McLeod said about covering Trump rallies.