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Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

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Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#101

Post by FpUser »

centimeter wrote: post #64
linsomniac wrote: post #2

I can imagine animosity from the leadership, for example classifying most journalists as "fake news", contributing to violence from the front line against them.

Most modern “journalism” is garbage and “fake news” is a pretty accurate description of what they’re peddling. Let’s not pretend that most institutional journalists aren’t in bed with powerful political or financial interests, or that they don’t habitually misrepresent facts for those interests.

>in bed with powerful political or financial interests, or that they don’t habitually misrepresent facts for those interests

Does this make them legitimate targets for attack by the police?

Btw the same can be said about politicians.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#102

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

lurkmurk wrote: post #51

"Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic." HN Guidelines But this is probably just my lurker observation. Not against all news but there should be at least some spark of insight of novelty. Feel free to flag now. Edit: To expand a bit.…

While this "off-topic" definition has always been a gray line, I'm definitely in favor of continuing discussion on hacker news. While it's not about technology per se, HN IMO has had the best discussions when it comes to freedom of information, and how to balance varying interests and definitions when it comes to freedom of information (e.g. is requiring you give up a password the same thing as requiring a physical key, what rights do police have to search your phone, etc.)

This topic is fundamentally about freedom of information and what level we are comfortable (or uncomfortable) limiting that freedom in certain situations.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#103

Post by staticassertion »

tw000001 wrote: post #76
hrishid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how certain kinds of rhetoric from the political left demonizes police offers, it seems likely that many of them have found a home on the right.

This is something people are severely underestimating. If you slander and dehumanize 40-60% of the population with accusations of white supremacy, you're going to create a white supremacist movement where one did not previously exist.

White supremacist infiltration of police organizations goes back a long time. Blaming the much more recent attention that people are paying to white supremacy for the movement itself is absurd. "You called me a white supremacist so now I am one" is nonsense.

The FBI warned of white supremacist infiltration of police forces over a decade ago.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#104

Post by tacLog »

imperio59 wrote: post #44
chadlavi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and the journalists are literally there to record evidence of their abuse. Police don't like it too much when you record evidence of them, say, beating a peaceful protester, or forcing a weapon into the hands of someone already pinned to the ground.

Where have you seen cops forcing weapons into the hands of someone on the ground? I haven't seen that. Definitely seen excessive use of force against seemingly peaceful protesters, but context is everything, and a 10 second snippet does not tell the full story of the interactions between that protester and that cop for the 45 minutes leading up to those 10 seconds. I tend to reserve my judgement on those types of vid…

Not saying I can verify this is real or even from recent events. But I think this is the video he is referring to: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/guqzyg/the_...

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#105

Post by dpbriggs »

georgeburdell wrote: post #75

@dang are you making an exception for these posts given the current situation? Although important, I do not see anything of technological interest. Any post about the protests are going to incite flame wars and make HN indistinguishable from any other social website right now.

They get flagged quickly off the front page.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#106

Post by bobwaycott »

tw000001 wrote: post #76
hrishid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how certain kinds of rhetoric from the political left demonizes police offers, it seems likely that many of them have found a home on the right.

This is something people are severely underestimating. If you slander and dehumanize 40-60% of the population with accusations of white supremacy, you're going to create a white supremacist movement where one did not previously exist.

That’s not how white supremacy works.

More importantly, the history of US policing is firmly rooted in white supremacy.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#107

Post by Pfhreak »

exclusiv wrote: post #77
tehwebguy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most news isn’t that, just cable news.

Where can you find credible, unbiased news coverage? I've started watching foreign news coverage of the US. It seems better, but I can't yet tell how much; all news still love the sensational stuff.

There's no such thing as unbiased news coverage. Any news outlet has more stories to report than they have capacity to report. They must exhibit some bias to control for what they show. (Or, alternatively, I guess they could just randomly select news stories, but I don't think that'd be very compelling.)

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#108

Post by arianvanp »

georgeburdell wrote: post #75

@dang are you making an exception for these posts given the current situation? Although important, I do not see anything of technological interest. Any post about the protests are going to incite flame wars and make HN indistinguishable from any other social website right now.

Though I agree the discussion might turn into flame war. I think this too much of an important flame war to just remove or deprioritise from the homepage ... Just my two cents.

Technology has been extremely relevant in this whole ordeal. The fact that we can now create and share videos online that document these human right violations en masse is a thing that technology has allowed us to do.

OTOH We as the 'tech world' play a huge role in both how the narrative of "the media is the enemy" came to fruition and how people are radicalised online to actually believe this.

It is extremely important to recognise what tech's place is in all this

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#109

Post by lostmsu »

xedeon wrote: post #95
lostmsu wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intentionally picked up from the crowd?

OUR LATEST DATA: 192 total press freedom violations —31+ arrests —131 assaults (108 by police, 23 by others) —30 equipment or newsroom damage. Assault category breakdown: 45 physical attacks (30 by police) 30 tear gassings 17 pepper sprayings 46 rubber bullet/projectiles https://twitter.com/uspresstracker/status/126787802436572365...

Nothing here shows intent to apprehend specifically journalists.

Wikipedia shows >5,000 arrests overall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd_protests. Which I bet means journalists were arrested way less, than an average protesting folk.

Re: Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28

#110

Post by cwkoss »

georgeburdell wrote: post #75

@dang are you making an exception for these posts given the current situation? Although important, I do not see anything of technological interest. Any post about the protests are going to incite flame wars and make HN indistinguishable from any other social website right now.

These discussions are incredibly important - I'd be disappointed if dang removes them.
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