Protest event data are both undertheorized and riddled with inconsistencies and errors. We call for modifying standard practices in the collection and construction of protest event data from electronic archives of news sources to both improve verifiability of data and integrate theory with data construction. The key change is a relational data structure that maintains strong links between events identified by coders and the underlying textual sources. This allows study of the relation between events and news coverage of those events. An additional change is to record data on the relations among events, including both recognition of complex events involving multiple actors, dates, action forms, or locations and explicit acknowledgement of the connection of events to specific protest campaigns or episodes of contention. We present preliminary illustrative data about Black protests from these new procedures to demonstrate the value of this approach. NOTE: This is a working paper. Comments and feedback are appreciated.
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