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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

#181

Post by chrisseaton »

Bjartr wrote: post #120
nickff wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "this site will only cover individuals who self-identify as journalists and have some track record of journalistic work" They're saying that they use journalistic work as a standard of who's a journalist... that's circular.

Where "journalistic work" means "has published an article or video that at least purports to be reporting facts, or something equivalent to that". If you claim to be a journalist, but can't point to something you've published, then you're not included. If you claim to be a journalist, and can go "here's three articles I published in a local newspaper (for example)", then you're included.

So how can you be a journalist in order to write your first articles if you're not allowed to be a journalist until you've written your first articles?

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

#182

Post by moojd »

ojnabieoot wrote: post #55
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.

Even as someone who is generally sympathetic to reports like this I don't think 2019 is a useful comparison. What are the numbers compared to other years with mass protests and/or riots (ex. 2016)? Is this a number that scales with the number and size of large events or was 2020 truly an outlier regardless?

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

#183

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

dgritsko wrote: post #122
hilbertseries wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On one side, the death of traditional journalism really has opened up folks' eyes to bias in reporting. Having one or two main-stream news sources really opens up the possibility for bias becoming truth. This is not what I see happening. Instead what happens is people see news they disagree with and deem it biased. So they find a news outlet that they agree with and decide that’s the real news.

So here's the dilemma I'm faced with. As someone who wishes to consume news that is as factual as reasonably possible, while also being aware that at least some bias is inevitable (no matter how well-intentioned the author may be)... how does one evaluate a news source for its trustworthiness, short of physically observing an event for yourself?

> how does one evaluate a news source for its trustworthiness

You evaluate multiple sources to independently verify information, and you hold each source up to consistently good ethical behavior and accurate information.

Basically, treat journalism like science, but a little more fast and loose (literally) because you can't wait for 10 years of research to determine how to act politically or economically.

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

#184

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

user764743 wrote: post #144

Reading the comments in this thread and I am amazed at the sudden pro-authoritarian shift seen on HN lately, what's going on?

It's just that recent issues have made controversial policing issues much more salient. Speaking for myself, I've always thought that riots are very bad and the police should use extreme force to shut them down - I just never really ended up talking about it until recently, because it was never a tremendously interesting or relevant topic. In general, it's important to remember that any consensus you see on an Internet forum is implicitly selected for people who care enough to talk about the issue.

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

#185

Post by Mc_Big_G »

user764743 wrote: post #144

Reading the comments in this thread and I am amazed at the sudden pro-authoritarian shift seen on HN lately, what's going on?

It's been like this for a few years now. I see part of the problem being people who are suddenly rich through high salaries or exits that also suddenly become Republican and don't care about anything but taxes. i.e. civil rights, freedom of the press, etc...

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

#186

Post by lawnchair_larry »

boopmaster wrote: post #128

This is because Black Lives Matter™, and because black lives matter. This isn’t a hyper escalation against freedom of the press, per se, it’s an escalation of police on citizen violence that came about when police felt threatened when folks got a little extra vocal about how the racist cops boys club has little to no accountability when harming citizens they’re supposed to protect. I think this narrowly focuses on tr…

Why would you assume that cops are racist? Especially when a lot of them are black themselves?

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

#187

Post by j_walter »

BLO716 wrote: post #25

I'll dare to ask this, but what defines a "journalist" in the data points here? The Clark Kent types are the only ones I really understand that can live under that title - but with the advent of syndication and micro-journalism (to use a term I just made up) for regional markets that have no real local presence of classic journalism, interested to know what it means now. Here in Buffalo, could go many directions.

Living near Portland I would say that anyone that puts "PRESS" on their shirt with tape defines themselves as a journalist...or even just someone holding a phone or camera. Same as those medics with a red cross out of tape. There have also been many examples of those 2 groups of people engaging in the violence that seem to think of themselves as immune to police orders because of it.

Unfortunately the videos and pictures of these examples of people hiding behind a designation are ignored by the MSM and are only found by being at the protests, looking at raw video or following ultra-conservative people like Andy Ngo.

This report also doesn't say why journalists were arrested. Many reports show that they were not following police orders to clear an area that has been designated a riot...and simply being part of the press doesn't give you the right to ignore police orders and if the police have to resort to non-lethal force in response to being attacked then being in the area leaves you vulnerable to the same non-lethal force.

Police don't have the time to check everyone's credentials at 1AM while having lasers and fireworks thrown at them when trying to clear out an area.

I dislike the police...but I also feel like they were not treated fairly in 2020, especially in places like Portland.

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

#188

Post by bostonvaulter2 »

trident5000 wrote: post #100

Anyone with an iphone and a youtube account is now a “journalist” and frankly theyre not far off in credibility from corporate. Thats where the bar is at. So the datapoints have shifted

That's not the definition being used here:

> “While we recognize the importance and the rights of the private citizen who snaps a photo or video of an arrest, this site will only cover individuals who self-identify as journalists and have some track record of journalistic work.“

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

#190

Post by tristor »

user764743 wrote: post #144

Reading the comments in this thread and I am amazed at the sudden pro-authoritarian shift seen on HN lately, what's going on?

I don't see a pro-authoritarian bent in the comments in this thread. What I see a lot of is people pointing out that the definition of "journalist" is very very loose in 2020, and that has an effect on the arrest stats. Many many many people have watched with their own eyes, live on video, what's been going on through the course of this year. We've seen CNN and ABC reporters shot with rubber bullets and accosted on live TV, but we've also seen a lot of "journalists" throwing rocks and molotov cocktails on live stream and doing other criminal acts.

There is a healthy and natural cynicism and suspicion of what appears to be a lop-sided reporting of the occurrences during the protests and riots in 2020. That suspicion may benefit people who are pro-authoritarian because they can play on it, but it doesn't necessarily mean those who are suspicious are pro-authoritarian themselves.

The article does a lot to try to explain what it /doesn't/ classify as a journalist, but never says what it does classify as a journalist. Those definitions are central to the point of the whether or not these stats are actually meaningful in any bigger sense than to say "well duh, of course more people were arrested during a year of protest and riots".

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