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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

>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?

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.

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