Who Is Hilde Lysiak? 12-Year-Old Reporter Stands Up For Her Right To Report The News

In an incident with an Arizona police officer, 12-year-old Hilde Lysiak stood her ground and has become an internet sensation whether she meant to or not. She’s a journalist, and the youngest member of the National Society of Professional Journalists, fighting for the legal rights of others and now herself. Here’s everything we know about Lysiak and her reporting endeavors.

Lysiak is a reporter and publisher of Orange Street News, a Pennsylvania news website. She covers hard-hitting news topics that range from border security to local crimes. Her website garners a $19.99 yearly subscription.

She has received national recognition for her reporting skills and writes a book series called "Hilde Cracks the Case" for Scholastic. Apple has also created a TV show series about her, according to Deadline.

In 2016, Lysiak, who was 9-years-old at the time, reported exclusively on a homicide in her neighborhood of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. She headlined the story, "Exclusive: Murder On Ninth Street!”

Critics on social media questioned Lysiak’s ability to cover the story and whether it was right for a girl her age to write about such a crime, AZ Central reported. Lysiak responded with a three-minute video where she took on the critic’s comments against her.

“I know some of you just want me to sit down and be quiet because I’m 9,” she said in the video. “If you want me to stop covering news, then you get off your computers and do something about the news. There, is that cute enough for you?"

Everything that Lysiak has learned may be due to the exposure her father gave her early as he is a former reporter for the New York Daily News. While employed there, he took Lysiak on many breaking news adventures, where she learned everything she needed to know about covering the news, The Seattle Times reported.

Lysiak’s relies on news tips to give her the story leads she publishes. She spends a lot of time on her bike cruising the neighborhood, asking neighbors if they have seen or heard of anything unusual.

During her recent incident with police, Lysiak was covering a news story at the Arizona-Mexico border, when she was confronted by Patagonia, Arizona, Marshal Joseph Patterson. Patterson threatened to arrest Lysiak and throw her in juvey unless she stopped reporting on the news.

Lysiak videotaped the incident and reported it on her website, showing the officer confronting her and telling her that she couldn’t lawfully record him and post it on the internet. This didn’t stop Lysiak asking the officer what exactly she was doing wrong.

Patterson told Lysiak that he was worried about her safety because they were “dealing with a mountain lion.”

“I gave you a lawful order and if you disobey a law enforcement officer….Lying to me and saying you were going to your friend's house wasn’t acceptable,” he said in the video to Lysiak.

“If you paste my face on the internet it’s against the law so I’m not giving you permission to use my picture or my face on the internet, do you understand all that?”

The town of Patagonia posted on its website about the incident saying, “The town of Patagonia has received many comments concerning Marshall Patterson's interaction with a young reporter from the Orange Street News.”

“The matter has been carefully reviewed and we have taken action we believe to be appropriate for the situation. We do not publicly disclose personnel actions including discipline and we will have no further comment on this matter.”