Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests | Hacker News Reader

Felony Charges for 6 Reporters at Inauguration Protests

nytimes.com

154 pointsRA_Fisher101 comments

This kind of reporting encourages people to form opinions before the facts are in. None of us know what really happened there, but it will probably get sorted out soon. By that time, it's too late because we've already jumped to a conclusion.

They were charged for lighting a limo on fire. Not exactly reporting.

Because people never get charged for stuff they didn't do.

Where in the article does it state this? As far as I can tell, they were swept up with others during one of the few violent parts of the protests and are now being charged on what is effectively a technicality.

[citation needed]

GP is making it up, so no citation is possible

Good thing you read the article instead of rushing here to defend an authoritarian threatening freedom of speech.

The journalists were not involved with the limo burning... they were caught up in the literally hundreds (yes, hundreds) of people arrested... when everyone knows only a tiny fraction of them were involved with the limo or the few isolated incidents of vandalism.

You are stating that reporters lit a limousine on fire. Do you honestly believe this?

I raise it here because I think it's important for us to dig into the details. Any time 200+ people are indiscriminately arrested, I think we should look closely.

The administration's extreme anti-press behaviour for the past week (and the months prior to that) contribute far more to those opinions.

The "facts" are official sentences such as "we will hold the press accountable", "news media should keep its mouth shut", Spicer lying to the press on day 0 and treating the media as hate objects, etc...

These police are employed by the DC city government, which is run by Democrats.

Link to arrests of journalists which took place before Trump was president: https://www.google.com/search?q=dc+metro+police+arrest+journ...

While Trump's views on the First Amendment are disturbing, these arrests do not seem related.

Agreed. I read the article waiting to see the other side of the story, or a least some hints as to what possible justification there could be for the charges. When the other side of the story isn't even mentioned, I'm not sure it qualifies as journalism (even for an opinion piece, that's pretty lousy).

It seems we've entered an era of mostly one-sided journalism - a.k.a. persuasive storytelling.

Here's the other side of the story, it's right in the article:

>The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington declined to comment Wednesday on why the journalists had been charged along with protesters.

And that right there is the sad part. People actually believe that line makes a news piece fair and objective. It's lazy journalism, especially given the headline.

News flash: when asked about these kinds of things, it's very common for the police to decline to comment. The job of a reporter doesn't (or shouldn't) stop there.

Sorry, you don't just get to say, "this side of the story was easy to write, so we wrote it; it was too hard to find anything for the other side, so we're publishing anyway and that's a fair representation of the facts."

Well then, how would you report on it in a way that is appropriate?

Just... don't tell anyone anything until March when we have more information?

Come on, don't just complain. It's easy to complain! Everyone complains, all the time. It's totally non-constructive and achieves nothing.

What's the right way of doing it, if this is the wrong way?

Just a few ideas off the top of my head (I'm sure there are a lot of other sources as well):

- Interview people who were there about what the journalists were actually doing and what happened when they were detained

- Mention the political background of the reporters and/or any history of participating in protests

- Explore legal precedents and ask experts to help explain why they may have been arrested

- At least mention the fact that if we don't know all the facts, we can't assume they were wrongfully charged

EDIT: If you disagree with my comments, please explain why you disagree rather than simply downvoting (ironically, downvoting for the sake of political disagreement only serves a purpose aligned with one-sided journalism - i.e., silencing opposing viewpoints in hopes of advancing one's own political ideology rather than promoting healthy dialogue). Thanks!

> Interview people who were there about what the journalists were actually doing and what happened when they were detained

Where do you find these people? I assume the piece was written after the protest was over, so there's no way to confirm who was there, and if their story is true. Even so, here's what the article says:

>> Witnesses reported that sweeping arrests during the parade targeted rioters, protesters and journalists indiscriminately.

> Mention the political background of the reporters and/or any history of participating in protests

Ok, great. However, I'm pretty sure if one of the reporters had prior incidents with protests, that would surface pretty quickly. It could be that there's no reason to mention the lack of prior incidents.

> Explore legal precedents and ask experts to help explain why they may have been arrested

What are the experts in these situations? Here's (another) quote from the article:

>> The charges against the journalists — Evan Engel, Alexander Rubinstein, Jack Keller, Matthew Hopard, Shay Horse and Aaron Cantu — have been denounced by organizations dedicated to press freedom. All of those arrested have denied participating in the violence.

The accused have denied participation and "organizations dedicated to press freedom" (are they experts?) have denounced the charges.

> At least mention the fact that if we don't know all the facts, we can't assume they were wrongfully charged

Guilty until proven innocent? That's a troubling attitude to take, especially with all the uncertainties the new Trump administration brings.

> The accused have denied participation and "organizations dedicated to press freedom" (are they experts?) have denounced the charges

I'm pretty sure that, by definition, those would probably be the most biased source you could possibly find. So no, not experts for the sake of balanced reporting. If the article is going to include their opinions, it might as well include the opinion of a random police officer, or at least a lawyer who has dealt with similar cases.

> Guilty until proven innocent?

Nobody said that or implied it. Trump may be president, but in case you weren't aware, the country's legal and judicial systems are no different now than they were a week ago.

What I am saying is that fair journalism shouldn't assume either guilt or innocence in the absence of facts. If you disagree with that then I'm not sure there's much I can say or do to convince you otherwise.

> - Interview people who were there about what the journalists were actually doing and what happened when they were detained

Agreed

> - Mention the political background of the reporters and/or any history of participating in protests

That is (or should be) irrelevant unless you want to support a story. We do not know if they were actively involved.

If you say they were Democrats, some people can conclude they provoked it. Others may think it's the Republicans attacking innocent journalists.

Same with being active in the past. How does that tell anything about this case without creating bias.

What if I was active in environmental protests, but I just cover politics as a job?

> - Explore legal precedents and ask experts to help explain why they may have been arrested

You would need to ask the policemen. Not the "grunts", the ones who gave the order. They should know why they gave it. But they declined to comment. So the answer of any expert might be "if they were detained, they probably did something wrong".

> - At least mention the fact that if we don't know all the facts, we can't assume they were wrongfully charged

I believe we should conclude "they were brought in and it could be for a number of reasons:

a) they broke the law b) they refused to cooperate c) they didn't to the best of their ability prevent someone from breaking the law (I don't know if this concept applies in USA, I'm from Czech Republic) - that includes even just calling a cop d) they were scooped up to sort out later (determine their contribution or provide testimony) e) it was a mistake"

I tend to sound forceful, but I'm not ill willed. I'm trying to raise some points that I think do or don't bring value to reporting on this issue.

Thanks

What's so bad about waiting until March?

So no one can report on anything when the authority with power refuse to comment on why they imprisoned a citizen?

How does that work exactly?

The police will make their case at a public trial where all sides can present evidence. That's the best system we've come up with for arriving at the truth.

Unfortunately, it requires a bit of patience (weeks or maybe a few months).

And it's this kind of reporting that fuels the need for 'alternate facts' because the facts presented so often leave a lot to be desired.

So because the police refused to comment on felony charges and imprisonment of journalists and citizens... no one can report on anything...

AND this apparently excuses the President's Press Secretary to spend his first press conference insisting on and threatening news outlets over grotesque lies about the size of a crowd?

Is this like a joke thread?

Sorted out soon? The reporters have court dates set in mid-February and March[0]. Now every other reporter is under the chilling effect of knowing they might arrested and taken to court for simply covering a protest.

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/24/journalists-ch...

Being falsely arrested raises the profile of a journalist without much of a downside. I doubt it will have a chilling effect.

I was there. Protests were peaceful, until the cops started throwing grenades and arresting folks. I took some photos from a distance[1], and also posted a couple videos to twitter[2][3]. There was a heavy police presence on Friday (inauguration day), which was in stark contrast to Saturday (the Women's March), in which the police were noticeably absent. Not surprisingly, there was no violence during the Women's March because there were no police to antagonize people.

I remember watching a journalist who'd been pepper sprayed by police wash his eyes with bottled water, just outside the restaurant we'd stopped at for lunch.

We live in troubling times.

[1]: https://goo.gl/photos/GfrxTZV4sADJqtgH7

[2]: https://twitter.com/brndnmtthws/status/822520102973095936

[3]: https://twitter.com/brndnmtthws/status/822530371841622017

So you're saying that the police antagonized people, and that made them so angry that they set a limo on fire? That doesn't ring true to me. It makes much more sense the other way: the police were there because they were needed, to protect bystanders and property from the mob.

Police is always there during these types of protests. There's plenty of peaceful protests with police around.

It's absolutely possible that, if the police starts being violent, the violence spreads very quickly and cars get set on fire. Crowd control has a lot of strategy to it...

99% of people walk a march and 1% torch private property (a limousine): clearly the "mob" is in the wrong.

That's a pretty uncharitable interpretation of parent's comment. I read it as "to protect bystanders and property from the mob [that was violent]".

And his point seemed to be that police being "noticeably absent" from peaceful protests is more simply explained by the fact that those protests were peaceful rather than police presence being the source of violence.

Police brutality is a real issue but indiscriminately blaming the police every time they show up doesn't help the cause.

> Police brutality is a real problem but blindly blaming the police every time they show up doesn't help the cause.

Let's not give the police the benefit of the doubt. Time and time again across the nation it has been shown that law enforcement is not for the populace-at-large but for the betterment of the state and its agenda - whoever the party in charge.

Do you have evidence that the police arrested the peaceful ones?

Thank you for the report. But without specifics about the circumstances of the arrest I still can't make an informed opinion yet.

So this is what the NY Times know:

    - In a certain area, protest turned into riot
    - Cars were being set on fire
    - The police does a sweep, arresting 230 people
    - 6 of those 230 people were reporters

And they chose to run a headline like this? They make it seem as if the journalists were targeted because of their profession, and that isn't what happened at all.

What is this - Trump lies all the time, so as long as we anti-Trump people lie a little bit less than Trump does, we're good? Fight fire with fire?

I'm slowly losing my faith in both sides of this fight.

Scooping up multiple journalists implies that they were arresting people indiscriminately. And charging them even.

Typically credentialed journalist would be treated differently so yes, that is the news worthy part.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-co...

It does seem like there isn't any room for measured responses between the two extremes of the political spectrum. And the two extremes look a lot alike. Horseshoe theory is something I'm seeing more of all the time.

I'm libertarian, where do I fall? :) I was against expansion and abuse of power by the Obama administration, now I stand against Trump. The difference is one of degrees. In the current case we're facing a populist authoritarian.

I'm all for drastically reducing the size of government, but not at the expense of police brutality of People of Color, the expense of refugees fleeing war, the expense of Muslims (despite being Atheist myself!), by using torture, starting another war in Iraq and pillaging their petroleum, providing political cover for violent dictators like Vladimir Putin, on and on ...

I identify as a classical liberal and I'm not absolving Trump and friends of their actions, I just lament the current state of political dialogue. It's all binary, and if you disagree with another person you are a Nazi or SJW, as the situation requires. Facts are bent, hidden, and politicized by the journalists we depend on to maintain a free society.

You are the uninformed one here and making a false equivalency: you don't charge journalists with felonies when they are covering a riot. This is completely without precedent in recent history in the US. It violates the 1rst Amendment. This is extraordinary.

Furthermore, at least some of the journalists covering this (I'm admittedly not sure if they are the six that were charged) were engaging in gonzo journalism, rioting alongside non-journalist protesters.

What's notable is that the reporters are actually being charged after being identified as such. Even if they were caught in a sweep and arrested, the charges should have been dropped when it became clear that they were just covering the protest and not participating. That's how it normally works anyway.

>And they chose to run a headline like this? They make it seem as if the journalists were targeted because of their profession

Headlines can never tell the full story. They have to consist of a low number of characters. How would you change the headline to be more accurate?

This not an anti-Trump story. The story is about the DA and the police filing obviously wrongful felony charges.

Sure, a bigger number of protesters also got similar charges, but that's not a big news because it's everything but obvious that the charges are bogus.

With reporters covering the event the situation is different. Mass arrests during riots I fully understand, and then reporters may get caught up in the net, but after you identify the reporters, you let them go. You don't file felony charges against reporters filming the event, unless of course you are a crooked DA.

Were they charged under HR 347 (passed in 2012), considering the Secret Service was probably in the vicinity?

Edit: Oops I meant 347, not 374.

Summary: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr347/summary

Full text: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr347/text

ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/blog/how-big-deal-hr-347-criminalizing-...

https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/374

> Life at Conception Act - Declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being beginning at the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual comes into being. Prohibits construing this Act to require the prosecution of any woman for the death of her unborn child.

Not sure how that's relevant.

He meant to say HR 347.

That makes more sense:

> Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 [sic] - Amends the federal criminal code to revise the prohibition against entering restricted federal buildings or grounds to impose criminal penalties on anyone who knowingly enters any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. Defines "restricted buildings or grounds" as a posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of: (1) the White House or its grounds or the Vice President's official residence or its grounds, (2) a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting, or (3) a building or grounds so restricted due to a special event of national significance.

> "HR 347, just signed without fanfare or news coverage by Barack Obama makes it illegal to protest anywhere the Secret Service is present. Who is present everywhere that Barack Obama goes? That's right, the Secret Service. Ergo, it is illegal to protest Barack Obama."

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr347/summary

This bill made it a federal crime to trespass on the White House grounds, and it made other minor changes to an existing law.

This bill amended a previously existing law, which can be read here, that was also about establishing a crime of being in restricted areas protected by the Secret Service. This bill's only significant change was adding the White House to the list of restricted places.

Some say those existing provisions made protests illegal at political events where the Secret Service is protecting a candidate for office. Our understanding is that this is incorrect. The law applies to "cordoned off" areas or where a restriction is posted and where the general public has been cleared from. Additionally, it is unlikely the courts would uphold a restriction on access based on a political viewpoint.

The Life at Conception Act? Why would they be charged under that?

for making it this far

I'd like more context to what is happening in the cover photo of the article, because as far as I can tell there's nothing happening to warrant pepper spray

I saw a few videos on mainstream news from that day and it looked like police were indiscriminately spraying both protesters and bystanders. I'm amazed it wasn't covered more, but I guess there's bigger problems.

This is just the beginning. Our great leader has repeatedly egged on his supporters to attack the media. He constantly criticizes any media agency that dares report facts that are personally embarrassing to him. Or ones that make him look bad or anything that shows that he is not as popular as he claims, or...

Imagine that you are a police officer and find some media people among a crowd (who may or may not have set a car on fire) ... The president's words demonizing the media at every turn are still fresh in your mind. What would you do?

This will get much much worse....

Trump will pardon... And I mean this in a bad way. I believe that rogue cops will view this as open season.

He'll be lucky to get the 20% tariff on Mexican imports he currently wants. I'll be surprised if he manages to do anything seriously speech crippling.

Yes and his clothing he sells in America but made in Mexico will be more expensive.. so maybe he will give himself an exemption

Is that a typo? Shouldn't he be taxing exports?

Taxes on imports just raise the price for Americans, it's taxes on exports that would bring money into America.

Taxing imports makes American goods comparatively cheaper so it is good for local businesses. (But makes them more expensive for consumers)

It's not a typo, and you're not wrong.

No, taxing imports favors US-made stuff, which benefits US manufacturers. That's the point.

Edit: ... That's the point of protectionism. I'm not arguing that it's the better policy. It's just what he seems to be doing. As with the flap over Carrier. As much as I disagree with much of Trump's plans, it is bizarre how US policy for decades aided manufacturers in exporting production overseas.

It doesn't benefit their employees, though, since consumer prices will rise as a result. As that happens, either the standard of living goes down, or wages go up, which raises consumer prices again.

So far, the wealth of the majority of western population has been based on cheap consumer goods. Those goods are cheap because the people making them have a lower standard of living than the people buying them. So if Trump reduces imports, that implies that to keep cheap goods, the standard of living for the portion of US population producing those goods must go down relative to the rest of the population.

Automation can alter that to a great extent, but the profits from that may just go to the owner class, not the workers.

Maybe so. But there's also the issue of underemployment. It's a pretty good bet that the Americans who used to make steel and cars and stuff didn't earn more doing whatever they did after those jobs went south/overseas. And that's probably one of the reasons why they voted for Trump.

Yeah, they were talking about this on Freakonomics yesterday - a lot of those people working steel or textiles wound up in low paying retail or service sector jobs.

Some of those jobs might come back. Maybe not as numerous due to automation and stuff, but it might be something at least.

Hmm, maybe I should switch to microcontroller programming...

If it's beneficial then why do we have to spend years negotiating complex trad deals instead of just lowering tariffs?

Economists have for many years argued we should do just that.

It's an import tax he's talking about. Presumably the idea is that US producers will gain from decreased Mexican imports. How that will help pay for the wall I don't know.

Honestly, I'm not sure it's worth it trying to analyze Trump's policy at this point. He seems to have taken a page from the Russian playbook, in that he seems intentionally chaotic and unpredictable, in order to keep the opposition reactive.

Ok, having done a bit of morning reading, I'm inclined to think the tax is a red herring. This is about the wall. Trump wants to get started with building it, maybe to be seen keeping his promises, maybe because it'll employ US workers. But it's expensive, so he needs some story for how it's going to be paid for, specifically how Mexico will pay for it. Even if that doesn't pan out, by the time it's clear the cost was paid by the US taxpayer, he'll have moved onto bigger things that will distract from the issue.

Alternatively, I'm wrong, and the wall really is just a huge put-on, used as leverage against e.g. the mexicans, or part of a more obscure campaign.

This is significant because in order to collect the story, journalists have to stand next to people doing illegal things. Since the journalist wouldn't be there otherwise, and is not a participant, if they are mistakenly charged, then the charges are dropped. Pretty straight application of freedom of the press. This is significant and will impact coverage of many many protests if it carries thru.

>Since the journalist wouldn't be there otherwise, and is not a participant

Do we know this is the case? Journalist and riot-participator are not mutually exclusive groups.

We know that the term journalist implies that mutual exclusivity. Accredited individual behaving badly will loose their accreditation very very quickly. This concern of blending activists and professional journalists is something the journalism community has been concerned with for years.

The cops don't need to be told from the top to make journalists lives hard. They've been at odds since basically forever. After all, the "shoot a black guy, get a vacation" system was working well and the media threw a wrench into it (I'm exaggerating but you get the point). They're just jumping at what looks like a chance to be jerks. They don't need to be told "the president wants you to treat the media badly". It's pretty obvious that their interests align.

I think we'll see more behavior like this as they test the waters to see what they can get away with.

The media has a tendency to focus on silly things, or get details wrong, or overlook important stories. But if you want them to work overtime to cover something, simply arrest a journalist.

A journalist has no more rights then any other citizen for a lot of obvious reasons. They should be treated with the same due process as any one else for a lot of obvious reasons. It's really time to end authoritarianism in the USA.

That is not how the news business is practiced. The assumption is that journalists are not participants and therefore are not prosecuted as such. Similar to a security guard standing near a protest.

Please cite the passage in the Constitution for that?

You can't be serious.

I am very serious, for a lot of obvious reasons. If you don't like the laws, stop voting for idiots that signed them into law. But certainly don't complain when the people you voted for approve said laws.

And for the authoritarians that voted my comment down... Please explain why a normal citizen is not entitled to the same rights as a journalist? We either have free speech or we don't. Working for a news paper should not grant you extra privileges on your rights to speak freely for or against your government.

The article doesn't say: what government is doing the charging? I thought the arrests were D.C. police, not Feds.

The NYT or the charged journalists never claimed that they were actually acting in a journalistic professional role during the riots.

"At least six journalists were charged with felony rioting after they were arrested while covering the violent protests that took place just blocks from President Trump’s inauguration parade in Washington on Friday, according to police reports and court documents."

Literally the first sentence of the article.

You would've thought that the two journalists questioned by the NYT would have defended themselves by saying that they were there working a professional capacity. But they didn't.

I'm not buying just because NYT says they were "covering" the protests.

That is the opposite of what reporters would do. You immediately tell them you're a journalist and they give you special treatment. You don't want special treatment, first you want to write a story about what they do to non-special people.

Then don't be surprised if these "journalists" get detained like the non-special rioters.

From The Fine Article:

> Mr. Engel, a Brooklyn-based journalist who writes for Vocativ, a media and technology outlet, was among those charged with felony rioting and released. He said by email on Wednesday that he was unable to comment on the case since it was active, but that he was looking forward to the day he could say more.

They can't do what you're asking of them.

Yea, and calling yourself a journalists means jack shit now days. I see no mention of a journalists from a reputable news source being charged. I mean just look up their profiles.."More gonzo than investigative", "This is why I'm an anarchist"...

C'mon mods. Time for another moratorium on politics.

"Let's not confront greater society, let's just focus on bread and circuses."

Yeah, right. We're going to solve problems by using an internet forum. Wake the fuck up.

This really does no belong here...hope mods remove it

Trump is going to be making news every couple hours. I foresee a lot of over worked and burnt out mods by the end of 4 years.

If you feel a submission is inappropriate for HN, please flag it and move on.

I have no sympathy Im afraid. People who cheer to rob certain section of society gets to feel the burn in turn. Karma is a bitch as the saying goes. I just hope lessons have been learnt.

EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-statism The people are the ones who gave their blessing and made state powerful because state promised to share the loot with them. If only people have resisted the temptation ...

How do you know the journalists were cheering?

And even if they were, what does that comment add to the discussion whatsoever?

Nope, not learning that lesson, you're going to have to arrest a hell of a lot of us.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com