Record Breaking Number of Journalists Arrested in the U.S. This Year • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by maybeOneDay » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #205

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…

There's a strong argument to be made for police accountability and conduct. But this post seems to complete ignore the actions of demonstrators and the journalists (often self-proclaimed and self-employed) embedded within them. Look at the disparity between Portland and Minneapolis with respect to the rest of the country: New York has 20 times the population yet only half the journalist arrests. Portland has the same…

I think this comment is dangerous as it legitimises the (clearly documented) widespread arrests of openly marked journalists behaving entirely non aggressively, almost surely because they were pointing cameras at police officers behaving violently. Whether or not you think that the police violence was justified (disclaimer: I don't, at all. I think the psuedo military tactics US police demonstrated were the opposite of sensible de escalation strategy) I'd be surprised if you think that police should have the power to decide whether or not they are filmed.

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

#312

Post by dragontamer » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:40 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #232

dragontamer wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you say that? Watch the Lafayette Square clearing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L1gZApugd0 Now notice a few things: 1. The first cop who throws a punch at them is clearly abusing his power. 2. A 2nd cop realizes what's going on, pulls the 1st cop off the news crew, and provides a place for the news reporters to run away. (This isn't clear from the Australian news camera. But some people filmed this i…

She herself says that they were "indiscriminate" and that they didn't care whether she was media or not. You are trying to make a big narrative that your video doesn't support.

The first thing Police Officer#1 does when the line breaks is rush over to the cameraman and punches the camerman in the face.

Its pretty clear from Officer#1's actions that he did not like that camera.

----------

Here's an alternative angle, in case you're confused by the 1st person perspective: https://www.abc.net.au/cm/rimage/12312456-16x9-xlarge.png?v=...

It is very clear that this officer is attacking the cameraman. The only two people on that corner are the cameraman and the reporter, and given their equipment and press-badges, it is very obvious that they're media. (Not "little blogger on random website". Its obvious that they are big-media, ABC 7 to be specific).

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It should be noted that Trump was clearing the area to give a press briefing. The press belonged there, if only to cover the President's new announcement in a few minutes.

The protesters had a right to be there too (but I realize this is a harder point to sell to conservatives and am willing to keep this as an aside). But it was clear that Trump chose to clear this particular group of protesters as an intimidation factor. There was no need for Trump to give a press briefing in this location (when he was already giving a briefing from the White House). Trump knew there were protesters here and wanted to physically intimidate them with a police clearing.

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

#313

Post by fallingknife » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #283

caeril wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PNAS has also looked at the statistics: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/32/15877 Police brutality is definitely a problem in the United States, but it appears to be entirely colorblind.

"This article has a Correction, but has also been retracted and Letters." From that retraction: > Despite this correction, our work has continued to be cited as providing support for the idea that there are no racial biases in fatal shootings, or policing in general. To be clear, our work does not speak to these issues and should not be used to support such statements. We take full responsibility for not being carefu…

The error is pretty trivial:

>“Although we were clear about the quantity we estimated and provide justification for calculating Pr(race|shot, X) in our report (see also 2, 3), we want to correct a sentence in our significance statement that has been quoted by others stating ‘White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.’ This sentence refers to estimating Pr(shot|race, X). As we estimated Pr(race|shot, X), this sentence should read: ‘As the proportion of White officers in a fatal officer-involved shooting increased, a person fatally shot was not more likely to be of a racial minority.’ This is consistent with our framing of the results in the abstract and main text.

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

#314

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:41 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #266

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?

This is the contrarian dynamic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... . Internet comments get provoked by seeing something one objects to. When the thread is new, the only things to object to are the article and the title, so comments come from people objecting to those. Such posts tend to be reflexive and shallow because those are the fastest reactions to feel and the quickest to write. Mos…

[deleted]

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

#315

Post by maybeOneDay » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #298

tjr225 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you're so keen on implying it, wouldn't it be more honest to phrase your sentence accurately?

> Black 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

#316

Post by ceejayoz » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #313

ceejayoz wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This article has a Correction, but has also been retracted and Letters." From that retraction: > Despite this correction, our work has continued to be cited as providing support for the idea that there are no racial biases in fatal shootings, or policing in general. To be clear, our work does not speak to these issues and should not be used to support such statements. We take full responsibility for not being carefu…

The error is pretty trivial: >“Although we were clear about the quantity we estimated and provide justification for calculating Pr(race|shot, X) in our report (see also 2, 3), we want to correct a sentence in our significance statement that has been quoted by others stating ‘White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.’ This sentence refers to estimating Pr(shot|race, X). As…

The retraction comes after the correction, and again, states explicitly:

> our work does not speak to these issues and should not be used to support such statements

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

#317

Post by honkycat » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #205

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…

There's a strong argument to be made for police accountability and conduct. But this post seems to complete ignore the actions of demonstrators and the journalists (often self-proclaimed and self-employed) embedded within them. Look at the disparity between Portland and Minneapolis with respect to the rest of the country: New York has 20 times the population yet only half the journalist arrests. Portland has the same…

So because you witnessed a riot for the first time, and it wasn't in one of THOSE neighborhoods, we should ignore these statistics and assume there is no problem with police arresting journalists at an elevated rate?

We literally saw a CNN news crew arrested live on air, something completely unprecedented.

The majority of BLM protests have been peaceful[0].

I'll just come out and say it: You are not arguing in good faith. You have 0 interest in considering the merits of the police accountability movement. You trying to discredit the movement by pointing to the minority of opportunists who have sprung up.

0: https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/

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

#318

Post by SkyPuncher » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:44 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #266

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?

This is the contrarian dynamic: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... . Internet comments get provoked by seeing something one objects to. When the thread is new, the only things to object to are the article and the title, so comments come from people objecting to those. Such posts tend to be reflexive and shallow because those are the fastest reactions to feel and the quickest to write. Mos…

> When the thread is new, the only things to object to are the article and the title, so comments come from people objecting to those. Such posts tend to be reflexive and shallow because those are the fastest reactions to feel and the quickest to write.

It'd be very interesting to see how a short delay of posting comments on new post would impact this.

Compared to other vote-based sites, HN is very health - but to your point, reflexive, shallow comments are the easiest.

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

#319

Post by Gracana » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:46 PM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #246

If you’ve been to some of these events, you’ll notice a large number of antifa people with handmade press passes calling themselves journalists, but also protesting peacefully by throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at cops, Burning buildings, preventing others from using their own cameras, hitting people, and breaking things. Those people are included in this count.

> Those people are included in this count.

They are not. You may have missed it when you read the report (it's near the end), but it says "A journalist who attends a demonstration in order to protest publicly, rather than to document the event, and is arrested in that capacity, will not be counted on the site."

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

#320

Post by secfirstmd » Tue, Dec 15, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

indigochill wrote: post #18

One line from the report jumped out at me as I was skimming it: > About half the journalists here are freelancers, who may lack the institutional support of a newsroom and the financial resources for a potentially expensive legal defense. I hadn't really thought of the value of legal defense from journalism institutions (as opposed to non-institutional platforms like Substack) before.

It goes further than that. Risk transfer is increasingly happening. For example take security. Freelancers don't have proper backup the way a big org does but are becoming more and more at risk.