Comment by paulsutter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paulsutter | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

It seems the article is predicting riots on global television (which recently happened), not global riots (a scary thought never experienced in history).

The riots we see on television are about camera work and a vocal minority. The news doesn't try to represent reality. They take any anecdote they can find and do everything they can to turn it into riveting television.

On TV San Francisco appeared to be destroyed in the 1989 earthquake. I lived in Cupertino. It didn't seem a big deal till power came on in the morning, and we saw the news. Wow! A major disaster! I drove north to see the devastation. When I arrived in San Francisco, 99.99% of the city was completely normal.

Quick, what percentage of the population of NYC participated in Occupy Wall Street?

Living in Clapham Junction, an area that was severely affected, during the London riots in 2011 I would say the opposite was true. Whilst many parts of the city were being trashed, the news struggled to keep up. It was much worse and widespread than they were able to depict.

Video I took at the end of my street whilst a local shop was torched: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4n7uCeV5nU&feature=plcp

FWIW, earthquakes are different to riots. I did the same as you in Christchurch, New Zealand recently after the earthquake there and would agree, the majority of the city was untouched with the epicentre being destroyed.

Reminds me of Fox News's "coverage" of last year's protests in Madison, Wisconsin. They kept showing shots of unruly crowds in which you could alternately see palm trees and Chicago landmarks in the background.

Deleted comment

The riots in London were a (criminal) minority being blown out of proportion. I didn't even realise there were riots going on until a couple of days into it. From the looks of the videos, it seems the problem was not "riots", it was the police standing back and not interfering when they should just have arrested the looters.

'Riots globally' not "Global Riot"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com