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

freedom.press

291–300 of 527 posts

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

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Intern…

"Extreme force"? Do you realize what you are asking for?

I've got a pretty clear idea, yes. I think people who go around wrecking stores, setting fires, etc. ought to be forcibly dispersed, using tear gas and riot shields and such if they won't leave.

(This will unfortunately have to be my last comment on the matter, so sorry in advance for the lack of response - I've been instructed by the mods in the past not to discuss this topic at any length.)

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

> but we've also seen a lot of "journalists" throwing rocks and molotov cocktails on live stream and doing other criminal acts. I'd like to see some evidence of that happening on scale. If there is no such evidence, I think, perhaps, your comment proves the parent's point.

Is 117 arrests “at scale”? Cause that’s what we’re talking about. Normalize that for riot conditions and it just seems likely a journalist is more likely to get hit by lightening than be arrested. Please don’t do the math on that, elaborating for emphasis.

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

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is pretty conservative on average.

It's mostly technology workers, who tend to be largely liberal. Are you sure it's conservative?

It's mostly technology workers ... WITH a strong entrepreneurial skew. That's why the conservative lean, I figure.

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

#295
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…

In that case, they should perhaps consider taking a job more commensurate with their abilities. Policing is difficult. That's not an excuse for doing it badly. Anyone who can't do it properly should be retrained, fired, or in some of the cases which occurred recently, criminally prosecuted.

Unless you ramp up pay in order to get better talent, this is just a recipe to have understaffed police units.

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

#296

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

We try to reason about the world. When the world appears to be unjust and we feel powerless to change, we (humans) tend to fabricate justifications for the actions of others. So that we feel better about themselves and we can move on thinking bad things won't happen to us. This is how you see someone getting beaten during an arrest and people are like "but this guy was once arrested for such and such". The assumption…

It's a tough reality check for a lot of people who grow up in the US, thinking it's a free country with equal protection of the law, when they realize that there are at least two tiers of protected overclasses (wealthy landowners, and the police) to which only subsets of the law applies in practice (to say nothing of the underclasses who are routinely beaten, robbed, and killed, with no consequences for the attackers).

It's not a small adjustment in one's worldview, and it's normal and common for people who have benefitted from the false narrative to want to cling to it and reject contradictory evidence, as you pointed out.

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

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it common knowledge that Gawker was a media company that irreverently covered silicon valley until it was bankrupted through litigation? The law courts are the main way that journalism is attacked in non-autocratic countries. Strong freedom of the press laws are celebrated, because they are constantly under siege by powerful people, who once targeted, would rather not have them.

Gawker was bankrupted because they really wanted to display Hulk Hogan's penis, filmed on a hidden camera in a private room, on their website. edit: removed reference to violating a court order, even though they did before having it overturned.

That's entirely incorrect.

Gawker objected to that court order, and won (https://www.leagle.com/decision/inflco20140117151).

> The circuit court's order granting Mr. Bollea's motion for temporary injunction is reversed because it acts as an unconstitutional prior restraint under the First Amendment.

There's clear Supreme Court precedent from cases like New York Times Co. v. United States (the Pentagon Papers case) that prior restraint is unconstitutional.

They lost the overall case on other grounds.

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

#298
post #267
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is worth a read for a nuanced, holistic look at the stats. https://samharris.org/can-pull-back-brink/

Lol, from that very article: > Specifically, in New York City, in encounters where white and black citizens were matched for other characteristics, they found that: > Cops were… > 17 percent more likely to go hands on black suspects > 18 percent more likely to push them into a wall > 16 percent more likely to put them in handcuffs (in a situation in which they aren’t arrested) > 18 percent more likely to push them to…

Some people seem to physically resist arrest more than others. That's really not a smart thing to do, and leads to related stats like that.

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

#299
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's a double-edged sword. 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. On the other side, now that everyone is a reporter, people roll around inside whichever cocoon of bias makes them feel the best. It's very frustrating, and overwhelming.

> 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.

I don't think it's that. People have always seen things they disagreed with in the news. The bias now is undeniably real. For example, the NYT has lost its credibility with me by firing its editor for running an opinion that I disagree with.

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

#300
post #96

All you need to do is write "press" in sharpie somewhere visible on your person and upload cell phone videos to youtube, twitch, dlive, etc. to be considered a "journalist" in 2020. Maybe set up a venmo/cashapp account. That's what the vast majority of live streamers in Portland do covering the riots, and most who were arrested were breaking the law. There are many more "livestreamers" than accredited journalists who…

"Journalist Andy Ngo" That's a good one, you mean the man who constantly steals the work of other journalists and pass it off as his own? The same 'journalist' who passed on kill lists of protesters' names to neo-nazi groups [0]? You need better sources. [0] https://emilygorcenski.com/post/andy-ngo-and-the-atomwaffen-...

You might want to look into "fair use" laws...that's not "stealing." If he was stealing them, why aren't they suing him over it? They're just very nice?

The point I was making with Andy Ngo is he publishes the public arrest records so you can plainly see what they were actually arrested/charged with. In fact, they are just the official images of the records released by the police.

So, what makes these "kill lists?" The person reading them? Lists of public arrest records are considered "kill lists?"

Nice Antifa activist you link to. And you say I need better sources? I'm talking about public records, not opinion.

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