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

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

#481

Post by znpy »

devmunchies wrote: post #414
znpy wrote: post #383

As a non-us citizen I don't regard the US as a free country anymore. Mind you, Bill Clinton was impeached due to the Lewinsky scandal not much for the scandal itself but because he lied about having an affair with Monica Lewinsky, and it was considered inacceptable for the president of the US to be lying. Now you've got Orange Donald lying all the time and nobody's complaining that much, and journalists are getting a…

IMO when the forming of militias became "extreme" (even though it's in the constitution) is when the writing was on the wall. You can't maintain freedom from the govt without keeping it in check. The public grew an aversion to militia's and we've been boiling the frog with more laws since.

> militias

Oh shut up...

The US Police is among the most militarized city-wide armed forces, you want to compare that with a mostly-unorganized group of random people protesting?

Policemen and policewomen with bulletproof vests and automatic rifles on one side, people throwing rocks on the other side.

Don't be silly.

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

#482

Post by esyir »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #478
esyir wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've seen the outcome of this. It's the turbo echo chamber that people here bemoan all the time.

I wish there were an effective way to distinguish between upvotes-as-agreement (or amusement) and upvotes as distinguishing between signal and noise. That seems to be one of the biggest problems in large communities that rely on it. (besides, like, clearly offensive and moderateable behavior)

So, I don't think there is one. At least not one compatible with democratic-like systems.

The fundamental issue here, at least to me, is that the upvote is an "I like this" signal. The instinctive use of an upvote is to see more of what you like. Turns out that what people like is what people already agree with.

Unless you build a strong culture that values the signal/noise ratio (remember that early reddit had much more of "UPVOTE IS NOT A DISAGREE" culture, hivemindy as it was), you're not getting your desired outcome. Worse, if you let in the mobs, it doesn't matter how principled your initial group was as they'll soon be overwhelmed by the crowd. The historical record there is obvious.

I think the only way about this is gate-keeping. You want that culture, you'd better enforce it. If you somehow start with a seed userbase of principled people, you only allow people voting rights once they meet whatever gatekeeping criteria that you've set. I don't think this is that scalable, but smaller more tightly knit communities might be a plus to some.

Actually, I'm wondering if something like this might have a niche out there somewhere. We know that Digg in the old days had the superuser group, and the strength of reddit was it's specialized subreddits. Would a system crossing specialized subs with hierarchical user privileges (viewer/voter/voter_with_grant_privs) be something that could work?

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

#483

Post by CaptArmchair »

esyir wrote: post #455
paulmd wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone who wishes to consume news that is as factual as reasonably possible, There really isn't such a thing. What you report and how you report it is inherently editorial. For example Fox News simply isn't reporting on the conservative protesters that are rioting in DC right now (stabbings, property destruction, etc), or choosing to report it as specific, isolated incidents stripped away from the larger contex…

Man, this reads to me like "My side's media is an angel and the other side is untrustworthy". Looking at The NYT's and the guardian's content on Portland/Seattle riots shows you the exact same phenomenon there. I exclude all left aligned and right aligned media from credibility (CNN, Fox, et al.). Then I see even the closer to center but still unfortunately drifting away (NYT, economist, WSJ) as "take whatever they c…

> I exclude all left aligned and right aligned media from credibility

Political alignment is a valid criterion to curate your news feed. However, if you apply that as your only criterion, you end up back at square on: getting a colored sliver of the news.

There are many more criteria you could apply as well. Is it a non-profit or a for profit outlet? Is the outlet based in the U.S. or is it located abroad, say, the E.U. or Asia? Is it a local, regional or national outlet? Is it an outlet I consider as my primary, daily go-to, or is it an outlet I consider as a weekend read? Is it an outlet focussing on a particular demographic? Which one? Am I part of that demographic? Does the outlet only provide short-form news articles, and/or long-reads with background information? Does the outlet report from a single side, or does it pit different perspectives against each other in equal measure?

Asking those questions to yourself adds differentiation in your how you curate your news intake.

The latter doesn't even have to be limited to other news outlets. Reading books is one of the best ways to gain the perspective one needs to digest the daily news.

I follow U.S. news sources but that doesn't mean I'm willing to accept what they publish at face value. Amending the news with many other sources helps me to gain perspective.

The trouble today is how much attention is diverted towards consuming fast digital media and being active in a 24/7 economy. If you don't take the time to stop, slow down and think about what the news is reporting, you're not going to develop the skills and the knowledge to properly digest the news and form nuanced opinions.

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

#484

Post by pas »

pnw_hazor wrote: post #397
smnrchrds wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the US, but here in Canada not following police orders is not by itself grounds for arrest. It has to be a lawful order, not whatever the police fancies at the moment. The police cannot for example say "stop filming or I will arrest you" and be able to legally justify that arrest in the court of law. https://globalnews.ca/news/6233399/supreme-court-montreal-es...

Same in the US. But, people are required to obey police commands, unlawful or not, and then seek remedy from the courts afterwards. And, there is usually a narrow self-defense exception. One can lawfully resist if the police are unlawfully trying to kill you.

In the video the police had control. There was absolutely zero need to escalate. They were trying to punish and intimidate the crowd instead of trying to disperse or control it. That should cost the commanding officer's job.

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

#485

Post by pas »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #216
smnrchrds wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the US, but here in Canada not following police orders is not by itself grounds for arrest. It has to be a lawful order, not whatever the police fancies at the moment. The police cannot for example say "stop filming or I will arrest you" and be able to legally justify that arrest in the court of law. https://globalnews.ca/news/6233399/supreme-court-montreal-es...

It was a dispersal order to leave a riot so the crowd can be controlled, not an order to stop filming. There’s no other legal and humane way to deal with rioters amongst a crowd. Even if you aren’t being violent or breaking anything, you have to leave when told to do so.

Let me copy my comment here too - sorry for the spam.

"In the video the police had control. There was absolutely zero need to escalate. They were trying to punish and intimidate the crowd instead of trying to disperse or control it. That should cost the commanding officer's job."

The professional way is to identify the instigators/leaders in the crowd and extract them one by one. Also to constantly move the crowd street by street - toward less narrow places.

> You have to leave when told to do so.

And if you don't they might arrest you. Standing there is no cause for smashing faces. They can simply grab the closest persons to the police line, bring them behind the line, arrest them. No need to lash out. This gets the message across. If the crowd starts to escalate, sure, water jets. But even that's usually completely unnecessary. Just pick up the trouble makers one-by-one, usually that means less than a dozen people.

Because if there really is an organized fanatical crowd then the police would likely withdraw, like they did in Seattle "zone".

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

#486

Post by viridian »

neilparikh wrote: post #420
jimmygrapes wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others have given great responses, but one thing not emphasized enough is recognizing the type of language used. It failed for various reasons, but The Knife used to do a textual analysis of articles and point out the manipulative language used. A quick example off the top of my head is recent reporting on the US election (all paraphrased, but I bet you can find real examples easily): "... baseless claims" "... witho…

The problem is, if they just repeat the claim verbatim, and it's about a complex topic (such as election interference or vote rigging), how is the reader supposed to actually make a decision on the topic, without doing weeks of investigation on their own? Shouldn't it be the media's job to analyze the claims and then inform the reader if they're valid or not?

Aren't you then arguing that is explicitly the media's job to manufacture consent among the public, according to the interests of their shareholders? If so, I would agree that that is frequently the role of a journalist.

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

#487

Post by jlokier »

93po wrote: post #426
znpy wrote: post #383

As a non-us citizen I don't regard the US as a free country anymore. Mind you, Bill Clinton was impeached due to the Lewinsky scandal not much for the scandal itself but because he lied about having an affair with Monica Lewinsky, and it was considered inacceptable for the president of the US to be lying. Now you've got Orange Donald lying all the time and nobody's complaining that much, and journalists are getting a…

The difference is Clinton lied under oath.

Trump is under the Oath of Office of the President of the United States.

That probably should count for something.

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

#488

Post by viridian »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #478
esyir wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've seen the outcome of this. It's the turbo echo chamber that people here bemoan all the time.

I wish there were an effective way to distinguish between upvotes-as-agreement (or amusement) and upvotes as distinguishing between signal and noise. That seems to be one of the biggest problems in large communities that rely on it. (besides, like, clearly offensive and moderateable behavior)

The fundamental problem is that people will treat upvotes as agreement, even in communities who set out to make sure this isn't the case. I stopped posting at tildes.net recently, which has this exact problem with upvotes in spite of this being a cultural pain point that caused so many of tildes' users to leave reddit.

In a way it's sort of evolutionary. People attempt to propagate their own ideas or similar, and remove ideas they dislike from the meme pool, via voting systems.

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

#489

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

pc86 wrote: post #275
three_seagrass wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journalist is not loosely defined. FTA: >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. Splitting hairs over the semantics of the word 'journalistic' is an attempt to discredit the study about authoritarianism being at an all time hig…

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…

With the collapse of local newspapers -- and what local newspapers remain often eschew investigative reporting due to lack of resources or unwillingness to alienate patrons -- there are many places where someone maintaining a local news blog as a side gig is the important local press. These people definitely deserve to be seen as "real journalists".

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

#490

Post by credit_guy »

jlokier wrote: post #487
93po wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is Clinton lied under oath.

Trump is under the Oath of Office of the President of the United States. That probably should count for something.

It's a different oath, you know? One oath is specifically that you tell the truth and nothing but the truth, the other is that you'll protect the Constitution of the United States.
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