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

freedom.press

341–350 of 527 posts

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

#341

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 see more interest in parsing the numbers beyond just 'arrests'. I think it is worth looking into what kind of arrests these are and the nature of them.

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

#342
post #135

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 is a bad example... Nick Denton was known for being happy to gossip and libel; he always said his victims loved the attention, and that if they hated it so much, they could always sue him. Eventually, some did.

The very name of the publication says everything I ever needed to know about them. Gawk: to stare or gape stupidly. Their articles invariably lived up to the name. This was not an organization anybody should have been taking seriously.

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

#343
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

A slightly modified version would be to delay on post depth (assuming less depth = more delay)

If you take it to the extreme, a youtube video being posted and everyone having to wait 5 minutes to comment, there is enough people that will see it at 4.30 to have a visceral reaction and post inflammatory comments. You can extend that down to each level of comments.

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

#344
post #305
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take a picture of something happening on your street and write a blog post about it, you are not a journalist. If you wouldn't be granted press credentials for something, you're probably not a journalist. If it's a side gig you don't intend to make a living doing, you're very likely not a journalist. There are plenty of instances where someone can fit into the article's definition of "journalist" where they pr…

Would you say people aren't software developers unless they are employed by a company to predominately develop software? Because your comment certainly reads like that type of gatekeeping regarding who is and is not a journalist.

The fact that arrests of journalists are being tracked implies that some gatekeeping about who is a journalist is necessary. The clearer the definition is, the more meaningful the statistics will be. That is the only way we would actually be able track whether journalists are being targeted by police.

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

#345

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

Pretty simple. Most of us have jobs, follow the law and do not recommend others break it either.

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

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you say people aren't software developers unless they are employed by a company to predominately develop software? Yes, without question. It's tautological.

It would perhaps be tautological if the OP had qualified professional software developers, but the tautological definition for "software developer" is "anyone who develops software (irrespective of whether they do it professionally)". If we're going to pick nits, we may as well be accurate, right?

Which was exactly my point. They are limiting the title of "journalist" to exclusively people who have been anointed as journalists by some gatekeeping entity. This rules out hobbyist, freelancers, self employed people, people just breaking into the industry, and all sorts of other people. The software developing equivalents of those people are inarguably part of the software development community. Why wouldn't their counterparts in another industry be considered journalists?

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

#348

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.

We will look back on the ruination of journalism as a profession as one of the most consequential changes of these last two decades.

If you've ever taken a course on American history, you'll recall that in the late 19th century some American newspapers started a bullshit war with Spain. The journalism industry has never been clean. Even Benjamin Franklin was using newspapers as a vehicle for overt propaganda. He created the first foreign language newspaper in America to propagandize to Germans in Pennsylvania. Journalism and propaganda have always been close siblings.

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

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video is the evidence. If you don't accept it as evidence, perhaps the fact that the governor of Minnesota apologized for it should hint that the arrest was not justified. If you don't consider any evidence, except police's words, to be evidence, I have nothing to add. https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/tim-walz-apology-oma...

Nowhere in the interview you linked to did the Minnesota governor say that the journalist was arrested for filming, either. The CNN journalist was far from the only person arrested. If the cops were arresting people for filming, not for violating dispersal orders, why were so many other people in the area who weren't filming being arrested? Why do you insist on claiming that they were arrested for filming, when CNN's…

The debate is whether the arrest was lawful or unlawful. What unlawful purpose did the police had in mind when they arrested the journalists is of very little effect and does not warrant a discussion. If you want to prove the arrest was lawful, bring on evidence. For example, that the journalist was charged and convicted of a crime in relation to the arrest made here later. If there are no charges and convictions, and I cannot emphasize it enough because you seem to ignore it no matter how many times I say it, the video strongly suggests and I daresay even proves the arrest was made for not legitimate reason, and the governor apologized for it, I cannot see how you can argue in good faith that the arrest was lawful.

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

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo he has hundreds(?) of examples if you scroll, but to save some time here's one from portland police https://twitter.com/PortlandPolice/status/128725192442150502... Edit: ok searching "press" on the feed maybe like more like tens rather than hundreds with actual video evidence, but im sure i missed some

Wow, downvoted hard just for bringing this information to light. This forum is going downhill and its not because of an "authoritarian" trend in this thread.
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