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Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year

freedom.press

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Re: Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year

#51

Post by tjr225 »

umvi wrote: post #2

> The vast majority of these arrests occurred while journalists were documenting the historic, nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd and in support of Black Lives Matter. So basically, it's not a coincidence - police are more likely to arrest journalists that are attending anti-police protests. And it's sort of understandable. Imagine you are a police officer called to go to a protest where ever…

> The escalated tensions probably adds way more stress to the officers there and they snap and start doing heavy handed policing because they want the protest to be over so they can go home.

If they can’t manage the stress in a way that doesn’t prevent them from doing their job correctly they should be fired.

The same logic applies to you or I, what is so special about the police?

Re: Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year

#52

Post by [deleted] »

NDizzle wrote: post #50
zug_zug wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're conflating two things here If people are actively engaged in protest (e.g. carrying signs), I agree they are not "journalists." However, having viewers or not is irrelevant. Also, let's not pretend even credentialed journalists weren't assaulted and arrested by police.

zug_zug, these are the kind of journalists that are getting arrested "in record numbers(1)": https://twitter.com/zerosum24/status/1321971751648137216 If we really want to talk about journalists (and their sources) arrested and prosecuted, the discussion is probably about President Obama and his administration. Not so much 2020. (1) since 2017 - funny that their data cuts off right there, isn't it?!

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Re: Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year

#54

Post by bpodgursky »

The blurred lines between vlogger / live-tweeter and protest participant are responsible for a lot of this.

Police have arrested journalists and camera crews before... but they generally avoid this because of the terrible optics, and there's a pretty firm line between "observing the protest" and "egging on the protest".

But if an independent journalist now doesn't need a team, just a cell phone and a twitter account, I think it's very easy for (1) far, far more people to self-identify as journalists, and (2) the police to not believe or care about the distinction between casual tweeter and casual journalist.

Re: Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year

#55

Post by ojnabieoot »

misiti3780 wrote: post #53

This is egregious, but nothing new. Obama was not a friend to journalist either: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversatio...

This sort of unthinking, reflexive cynical glibness encourages the public indifference that allows things like this to happen:

> The numbers are staggering. Arrests of journalists skyrocketed by more than 1200% in comparison to 2019.

This is in fact new.

Re: Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year

#57

Post by anonfornoreason »

staplers wrote: post #47
tppiotrowski wrote: post #27

Honest question: why were these journalists arrested? Do you actually have to commit a crime or can you be arrested as part of crowd control technique and released later? Did these journalists actually commit a crime? Will they be charged with something in court?

I watched a lot of live streams from local Portland journalists and they were arrested (wearing PRESS helmets) for no reason other than being near the protests. After a while it became clear it was to deter them from returning to the protests the next day. The Portland DA dropped all charges except felony rioting (lighting fires) for most protesters.

I live in Portland and watched many of these press people via Twitter. The reality is that many of these “press” are activists who document their activism and the activism of their comrades. They call themselves press, but they are press+activist. As a result they are often in the crowd of people throwing stuff at police, while screaming “hey you fucking fascist, aren’t you embarassed to be an authoritarian?”

I am not saying that they are better or worse than traditional press, which I have a strong aversion to, I am just saying they are not impartial and are very often just Twitter journalists who are protesting at the same time they are working, and as such these numbers don’t tell the full story. I happily follow them to see on the ground footage, but you have to take their editorial viewpoint with a huge grain of salt.

*Edited to add "many" in describing press, since my original statement implied all, which is obviously not true.

Re: Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year

#58

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

I see some folks (and many journalists) astounded that folks wearing press badges and press helmets were arrested, which I believe to be a dangerous viewpoint. We don't want journalists to get special treatment for the same reason that we don't want politicians or judges to get special treatment and also for the same reason we dogfood our systems. Journalists need to have a representative experience in order to be able to report well.

If the populace loses some right, it's not enough to just restore it for just a select few.

Re: Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year

#59

Post by jimmar »

ultrarunner wrote: post #38
umvi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I unfortunately think that the US is trending towards the likes of countries like Hungary, Turkey, and Russia and how they handle their press We just had 4 years of every major media outlet (besides Fox) raking the president of the country over the coals 24/7... I think we still have a long way to go before we are like Turkey or Russia (how often do you see criticism of Putin or Erdogan in their respective media?).

I could be wrong, but the wrinkle I see is that their raking him over the coals is perceived to be in pursuit of their own political goals, not in pursuit of the truth. Their criticisms were trivial (as an extreme example, Melania's performance redesigning the rose garden). Arguably, stories of substance such as police violence were actively suppressed by the state through intimidation. I largely agree, but this isn'…

> "stories of substance such as police violence were actively suppressed by the state through intimidation."

Maybe we're thinking of different events, but there was a tremendous amount of news coverage about police violence this past year.

Re: Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year

#60

Post by [deleted] »

umvi wrote: post #36
ausbah wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

police don't nor should get to brutalize civilians just because they don't like being called out for the corruption and abuse of power rampant in their profession

I'm not saying it's right, just that it's understandable. To use a software analogy it would be like if for your job you were forced to help make a website for anti-software developers who hate you and your profession, and you are treated poorly while trying to do your job. That environment is not going to cultivate craftsmanship to say the least. The right thing to do is to dutifully and professionally execute your…

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