Police attacks against journalists across the U.S. since May 28 • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by lostmsu » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #115

lostmsu wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intentionally picked up from the crowd?

Intentionally picked up from a position that police told them was okay to take. Offered to move for a subsequent officer who confronted them, and were arrested for resisting arrest. Don't take my word for it, cameras were rolling the whole time. Governor acknowledges that this was improper. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/29/cnn-reporters-cover... Another case where a reporter shows his credentials and gets arr…

The first one is concerning, but the incident appears to be resolved now (?).

The second one does not seem like a major problem to me, as the police might not know a random filming guy showing some piece of paper to be an actual reporter, rather than just a friend of the rioters filming their action for YouTube. It seems it also was resolved.

Unless there's an easy way for police to make a credible determination if the media badge is valid, I would count it as an honest mistake with no major consequences.

Again, this does not support the implication of the title, that police picked journalists intentionally, and more supports my point that journalists were caught in the process.

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

#192

Post by theplague42 » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

prudhvis wrote: post #180

bosswipe wrote: post #91

I had been heartened by the right's recent upswing in fierce support for the first amendment, but unfortunately I've seen little of that support during the protests as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press have been attacked. For example Rand Paul has not tweeted in a week. Sadly, as always, these kind of principled arguments, on both sides, are a sham to advance whatever the partisan battle of the week is.

Aren't most of these happening in majority left wing states and cities run by the left. AFAIK they are still report the Mayors of the cities. Let's not make this a Right vs Left thing any more. The country is already divided as it is, we don't need further division in this country.

Sure, but the president is a Republican who is relishing the opportunity to violently put down protests.

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

#193

Post by staticassertion » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #151

jascii wrote: post #133

Disclaimer: I am a bleeding heart liberal and this may filter my observations. I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the…

To me, it was pretty clear that the police in Santa Monica and Long Beach allowed the looting to occur while treating the protesters like criminals from the outset. This isn't to say that other local precincts weren't significantly better in their treatment of protesters, but there's clear evidence that many police departments are either corrupt or completely inept in addressing violent crime. This has been a long ti…

The police seem to clearly be allowing looting on purpose. SoHo was looted two days in a row. Where were the NYPD? There are 10's of thousands of uniformed officers Maybe you can say the first day they somehow missed it, but two days in a row? Come on. I refuse to believe that they didn't see this coming - they brag about how they're "gathering intel" on terrorist groups, but they couldn't check twitter to see #soho trending?

They want the story to be about rioters so they're letting them riot. It's a way to shift the public opinion (same way some cops have been seen breaking car and store windows).

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

#194

Post by AaronFriel » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #169

AaronFriel wrote: post #126

Hey dang, why was the headline changed from the source's?

I changed it from the article title to a shortened version of the URL slug (/well-try-to-help-you-follow-the-police-attacks-on-journalists-across-the-country). That's often a legit source title, along with the HTML doc title, and other places that articles tend to reveal what they're actually about ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). The reason I changed it is that "U.S. police have a…

I would like you to please change the title back because the quantity and recency is salient to the topic, and that the new title diminishes the title in those two specific ways.

1. This is not just about police attacks against journalists across the U.S. in general, this is about attacks since a specific date. The date matters because it is recent, it delineates a specific span of time (a mere five days), which helps the reader place it into context. This is about the protests that have occurred since the murder of George Floyd.

2. This is not just about some rare occurrence of police attacks against journalists since a specific date, this is about how this happened many, many times, and as the article notes, in the majority of the cases the journalists were clearly identifiable as press. This places it in context again: this is not a one-off incident, but something that has happened with startling frequency.

With the original title, it is easy to identify a through-line from the start of protests against the murder of George Floyd to a startling factual statement: on average, each day since then, police have attacked journalists over 20 times a day. Or to put it another way, police have attacked a journalist almost once an hour since the protests have begun.

That context is vital to the discussion, if as you say the headline has such an enormous impact on the conversation that follows. If, as I see in your recent edit, the distribution function is changed because the headline specifically calls out that high rate of attacks on journalists in a small window of time, then I think it moves that function for the better.

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

#195

Post by selimthegrim » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

staticassertion wrote: post #193

ravenstine wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, it was pretty clear that the police in Santa Monica and Long Beach allowed the looting to occur while treating the protesters like criminals from the outset. This isn't to say that other local precincts weren't significantly better in their treatment of protesters, but there's clear evidence that many police departments are either corrupt or completely inept in addressing violent crime. This has been a long ti…

The police seem to clearly be allowing looting on purpose. SoHo was looted two days in a row . Where were the NYPD? There are 10's of thousands of uniformed officers Maybe you can say the first day they somehow missed it, but two days in a row? Come on. I refuse to believe that they didn't see this coming - they brag about how they're "gathering intel" on terrorist groups, but they couldn't check twitter to see #soho…

This is them shaking the public down and saying they decide which laws to enforce.

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

#196

Post by dang » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

c1b wrote: post #25

Over 100 upvotes in 20 minutes for something non tech related?

Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. HN is for (much) more than tech-related things.

On the question of political topics on HN, see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... Some good threads to start with might be https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21607844 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22902396. Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869, if you think HN has gotten more political lately. The principles haven't changed in 10+ years, although we've learned to do a better job of applying them.

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

#197

Post by colllectorof » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

jascii wrote: post #133

Disclaimer: I am a bleeding heart liberal and this may filter my observations. I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the…

>the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith

Seems fairly accurate. I'm just annoyed that many people can't grasp that awful police behavior and awful behavior from other actors are not mutually exclusive. There is lots of unjustified police violence and provocations against perfectly peaceful protestors. There is also systematic vandalism and arson by people who aren't peaceful protestors. And there is massive amounts of opportunistic vandalism and looting. All three can and do co-exist.

This is not a two-sided conflict. More like three- or four- sided mess.

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

#198

Post by AaronFriel » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #169

AaronFriel wrote: post #126

Hey dang, why was the headline changed from the source's?

I changed it from the article title to a shortened version of the URL slug (/well-try-to-help-you-follow-the-police-attacks-on-journalists-across-the-country). That's often a legit source title, along with the HTML doc title, and other places that articles tend to reveal what they're actually about ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ). The reason I changed it is that "U.S. police have a…

Separately and for transparency, I emailed dang and the HN moderation team and asked for this public response.

Thank you dang for doing so and bringing transparency to your moderating decisions.

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

#199

Post by runawaybottle » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

exclusiv wrote: post #186

curiousgal wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am honestly rejoicing at the sight of Americans discovering they are not really as free or as better than the rest of the world as they think they are. Maybe this will be the kindle that will help make things right for the entire population. I know the majority of HN readers are in the top 10% of the population and don't face the same struggles as others.

> I am honestly rejoicing at the sight of Americans discovering they are not really as free or as better than the rest of the world as they think they are Americans are still freer than the rest of the world in general. None of this changes that. "As better" - still hasn't changed either if by better you mean better off. If you're born in the US, in general, you're in a position to be better off than most of the worl…

That’s exactly what I’m appealing to. Khashoggi got murdered brazenly, and nothing could be done about it. Hong Kong protestors get detained indefinitely, and nothing can be done about it.

The American imperative is that we must do something about it. Our failure is that we have a threshold that needs to be met, but we do have a threshold. In most of the world there is no threshold. You can do anything, indefinitely, with no change.

That’s why Putin is a multi decade President. That’s why China has a multi decade firewall. There’s no threshold.

We are imperfect, but we acknowledge the boiling points, an actual metric we can work with. A number we can improve upon.

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

#200

Post by staticassertion » Tue, Jun 02, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #195

staticassertion wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police seem to clearly be allowing looting on purpose. SoHo was looted two days in a row . Where were the NYPD? There are 10's of thousands of uniformed officers Maybe you can say the first day they somehow missed it, but two days in a row? Come on. I refuse to believe that they didn't see this coming - they brag about how they're "gathering intel" on terrorist groups, but they couldn't check twitter to see #soho…

This is them shaking the public down and saying they decide which laws to enforce.

Agreed, I actually think it's both - it's punishing the public and shifting the story.