Missouri Governor Vows to Prosecute St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Reporting • Hacker News Board

Re: Missouri Governor Vows to Prosecute St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Reporting

#141

Post by zzzeek » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

EtherTyper wrote: post #122

zzzeek wrote: post #8

> “And then to react in this way where you don’t say ‘thank you’ but actually turn on the reporter and researchers and go after them…it’s just weird.” it's not "weird", it's an elected official trying to deflect from being exposed as completely endangering the PII of state employees. while trying to bring charges here is ridiculous, it might not be the case in a few years as we watch the continued crumbling of instit…

Right, or allegedly trying to extort the government of Ukraine to end an investigation against the official's relatives. Corruption on all sides unfortunately.

which would also be bad! however, my example actually happened.

Re: Missouri Governor Vows to Prosecute St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Reporting

#142

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #80

NoGravitas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This anti-press stuff started with Trump. * gestures vaguely in the direction of Richard Nixon, waits for historians to chime in with earlier examples.

Trump literally called the press the enemy of the people. Traditionally, that's the sort of rhetoric a leader uses when they're about to send out the hit squads.

Everyone is kind of right here. I'd phrase it this way. R administrations expand the attacks on journalists (and everyone who exposes Gov wrongdoing) that were done by previous D administrations.

Trump's method to reduce accountability was to nurture animosity specifically against journalism. Behind the scenes, his admin's revenge on whistleblowers carried on pretty much the same as his predecessors.

My long position is that US press coverage has been continually (but not exclusively) deferential to authoritarianism. We see that US coverage of unconstitutional executive domestic actions is often nonexistent, until whistleblowers drag news orgs into doing their jobs (Mark Klein's evidence of NSA+AT&T collusion wasn't enough to overcome the giant press yawn. Snowden's mountain of evidence was impossible to ignore.)

The US press is somewhat better at covering the misdeeds of R administrations than of D administrations (eg: US coverage of Holder's efforts to target journalists was muted, at best.) The difference is primarily a matter of competence. We've proven repeatedly that focusing on bias instead of ineptitude just leads to the 'view from nowhere'.

Re: Missouri Governor Vows to Prosecute St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Reporting

#143

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:03 AM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #141

EtherTyper wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, or allegedly trying to extort the government of Ukraine to end an investigation against the official's relatives. Corruption on all sides unfortunately.

which would also be bad! however, my example actually happened.

[deleted]

Re: Missouri Governor Vows to Prosecute St. Louis Post-Dispatch for Reporting

#144

Post by EtherTyper » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:25 AM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #141

EtherTyper wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, or allegedly trying to extort the government of Ukraine to end an investigation against the official's relatives. Corruption on all sides unfortunately.

which would also be bad! however, my example actually happened.

Yes, as did mine (allegedly.) See https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/14/hunter-bi...>

It seems that in both cases the accused was acquitted or the investigation against them was closed. That's hardly a reasonable indicator of innocence though, as just like you said above, powerful people can often make up excuses to get away with crimes and corruption scot-free. You might be entirely right that one example really happened and the other didn't.