Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

freedom.press

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 527 posts

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

#351

Post by j_walter »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #250
j_walter wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pict…

I’ve personally seen this repeatedly, and people have their heads so far in the ideological sand that they downvote you for some reason. It’s true, “independent journalists” wearing PRESS are basically an in-joke in the PNW. If there is one thing they are great at, it’s propaganda. They somehow managed to convince the rest of the country that they’re the good guys and the good guys are violent racists. Nothing could…

Yeah and I don't care if people down vote me. That won't make me change my mind or change the things I have personally witnessed. If people wish to believe the MSM reporting then fine, but I won't be bullied into changing my mind.

There are bad guys on both sides, but the ones I've seen being most violent are attacking cops and people that are expressing their freedom of speech while staying within the law...all while crying poor me the cops used teargas (some were even caught on video setting fires before this).

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

#352

Post by j_walter »

mitjak wrote: post #290
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve personally seen this repeatedly, and people have their heads so far in the ideological sand that they downvote you for some reason. It’s true, “independent journalists” wearing PRESS are basically an in-joke in the PNW. If there is one thing they are great at, it’s propaganda. They somehow managed to convince the rest of the country that they’re the good guys and the good guys are violent racists. Nothing could…

care to provide any sort of evidence?

If you need some evidence of what is actually happening, then I recommend following Andy Ngo on Twitter. It's certainly only one view point of the protests that are going on, but its a side you won't see covered anywhere else.

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

#353

Post by ska »

conductr wrote: post #293
bjourne wrote: post #229

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.

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.

Even "as scale" (whatever that means) arrests can't really be meaningful in this context. If the contention is that police are unjustly targeting journalists, arrests are one tool they can unilaterally employee. It would be interesting to see rates of arrest vs. charges files vs. convictions I suppose.

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

#354

Post by Bodell »

abacadaba wrote: post #307
bjourne wrote: post #229

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

So in looking at the first link. I had a hard time finding a single example of anyone pretending to be a journalist, except maybe the owner of the twitter account. What I did find were hundreds of videos of random people getting in fights, the owner of the account talking about the fights he had also engaged in, and a lot of claims about people being part of a secret underground antifi something or other. In reality not one of the videos seemed to be depicting anyone supporting or proclaiming that they themselves were antifi (though I’m sure there are a few somewhere in there) but most especially there was no video of evidence of any of the “secret” antifi activity that the owner of the account seems to be selling in his upcoming book.

As for the second post. It is indeed a person wearing a shirt that says press on it who is not a journalist. However, the given reason was “so he would not be shot by feds” which to me highlights the spirt of this conversation, that there is growing concern as well as some evidence that the country has sifted toward a more authoritarian bent.

Edit: I forgot to mention that there were no rocks or molotovs being thrown in any of the videos I saw, which there were reportedly hundreds of.

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

#355

Post by slg »

karaterobot wrote: post #344
slg wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a difference between defining a category of people and gatekeeping a category of people.

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

#356

Post by dtech »

anonfornoreason wrote: post #57
staplers wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

I am sure that this happens. However, legitimate journalists who are trying to cooperate with the police and are not protesting are also arrested: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/29/us/minneapolis-cnn-crew-a...

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

#357

Post by Manfredo_1 »

smnrchrds wrote: post #349
Manfredo_1 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, an…

> 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.

Then please edit the comment to which I originally responded to correctly state that they were arrested for violating an order to disperse.

If it's of such little effect then surely you would be fine with making this modest change, correct?

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

#358

Post by chrisrhoden »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #79
chrisrhoden wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, the press credentials should probably grant some benefit of the doubt if the justification for arrests is something along the lines of, "I can't think of any reason you might be here except to cause mischief." I think what's shocking to people is that, traditionally, police have understood that they're somewhat more likely to be held accountable for abuses of power toward journalists. It seems likely that is p…

> ... traditionally, police have understood that they're somewhat more likely to be held accountable for abuses of power toward journalists. It seems likely that is primarily for the same reason that e.g. a tech company with a bad policy is more incentivized to fix it if it happens to stub the toe of anyone with an audience. That's exactly what I see as problematic with it. When the only way to get google to fix some…

I'm not arguing that it's good that police are more likely to handle situations with reporters well. I am saying that the fact that they won't even be on their best behavior in their interactions with the press anymore is indicative of the fact that they no longer think it's necessary to do so.

That strikes me as noteworthy.

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

#359

Post by smnrchrds »

Manfredo_1 wrote: post #357
smnrchrds wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, an…

> 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. Then please edit the comment to which I originally responded to correctly state that they were arrested for violating an order to disperse. If it's of such little effect then surely you would be fine with making this modest change, correct?

> correctly state that they were arrested for violating an order to disperse.

My understanding of the situation is that they were arrested because the police wanted them arrested, plain and simple. Not because they ignored any order, but because the police had the power and the will, though not the legal right, to punish them.

I am going to stop responding to your comments as you do not argue in good faith.

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

#360

Post by tremon »

Steltek wrote: post #280
war1025 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess it's actually that HN has members who aren't from the major tech metros, and people outside of those areas tend to be more conservative (in a relative sense at the very least). For many, this would be the main place they ever come across those people, which would make it seem unusually conservative.

As a theory, Y Combinator, thus HN, is strongly aligned with startups which, in less hip circles, are "small businesses". Small business tends conservative because regulation disproportionately impacts them (eg. regulatory capture). It would certainly be nicer if more regulation created a level playing field and actually prevented anti-competitive practices. To counter balance the above blatant and unfair stereotypin…

small business tends conservative because regulation disproportionately impacts them

That doesn't make sense. If someone feels unduly burdened by the status quo, why would they vote to preserve it?

Post reply on HN