Posted on 08/18/2014 4:43:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
Police in Ferguson, MO arrested two journalists for covering the protests over their fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager eight times, including in the back. Officers shoved Wesley Lowery, of the Washington Post, into a soda machine for taping them, before he was cuffed in plastic binds. An officer rammed Ryan Grim’s head against glass. The reporter for the Huffington Post wasn’t packing up his reporting gear quickly enough. Both journalists’ respective papers released statements condemning the Ferguson police, but the decline of free press reaches further than one town in Missouri.
Unfortunately state suppression of the press is hardly isolated to Ferguson. The problem goes all the way up to the White House, where the Obama Administration is preventing journalists from accurately reporting on policy.
According to The Society of Professional Journalists, the Obama Administration has engaged in “excessive message management and preventing journalists from getting information on behalf of citizens.” The grievances were also supported by 37 other journalism and open government groups. The report details the use of “Public Information Officers,” whose roles are to filter reports before they’re available for mass consumption. Stories coming from the White House are trimmed and primed to perfection before the public can even get access to the latest information.
That’s when they’re not spying on journalists. Last year, the Justice Department subpoenaed all of the Associated Press’s phone records while hunting for Edward Snowden. According to Human Rights Watch, the increase in U.S. surveillance has dramatically impacted journalism. They write, “The crackdown includes new restrictions on contact between intelligence officials and the media [and] an increase in leak prosecutions… Journalists interviewed for the report said that surveillance intimidates sources, making them more hesitant to discuss even unclassified issues of public concern.”
On Wednesday, a group of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists banded together to demand the Department of Justice stop threatening reporters with jail. Their cries for sanctuary have been met with silence.
In a saddening review of the world’s treatment of journalists, International NGO Reporters Without Borders rates 46 out of 180 countries in press freedom. The United Kingdom, Uruguay, and Poland all treat their press far better than in this country. “Freedom of Speech,” as codified in the First Amendment, has all but deteriorated. The government has made it exceedingly difficult for reporters to ask hard questions and receive straight answers without repercussions. It’s a lot easier for journalists today to report on click-bait than hard-hitting truths about our government.
In order for any democracy to properly function, the citizenry must be informed. Voters can’t make informed choices without the press. Representation without information is not representation at all.
The Columbia Journalism Review released a story a few months ago unveiling how the media industry functions today; their analysis can be quickly summed up by the line: “Report first, ask questions later.” This media model has triumphed over its old-media precursor--the Network-era news symbolized by Walter Cronkite--and this “new-media” model is here to stay. News agencies are far more focused on clicks and views, foregoing copy editing and fact checking.
While the public can’t expect media to return to the Cronkite-era (nor would we want to--it was a time where all journalists were white men, news wasn’t entertaining, and there was only one narrative to every news story), we can hope that accuracy becomes reprioritized. But the first step has to be demanding that the government doesn’t get in the way of the press doing its job: informing the people. Press freedom needs to be a priority. Only after this problem gets addressed will we see a renaissance of quality journalism.
The United States, and its people, need to emphasize the importance of freedom of the press. This country cannot function as a “democracy” if its constituency is ill- or uninformed. Yes, a great deal of the media’s misreporting and click-baiting is its own fault. But let’s make it easier for the press to report on how our government is behaving--because for many, that’s what we’re interested in above all else.
If the opening lines of the article is error ridden, the remainder is surely suspect.
Rule #1: Never let facts get in the way of your journalistic whine.
“shooting of an unarmed teenager eight times, including in the back.”
If that’s what the 2 reporters were reporting, charge them with inciting a riot.
In fact I would charge any reporter repeating this lie with inciting a riot.
If anyone is killed in the riots, charge them with everything you can for that too.
The 1st amendment does not protect your right to scream fire in a crowded theater if there is no fire.
It’s time reporters are held accountable.
neither of the Poasties can be trusted to tell the truth about anything, especially their own alleged arrests.
What was the Washington Post reporter doing in Missouri in the first place? Are there no black deaths, real murders, to cover in DC?
August 17 2014
by Dan Cannon Share This Post
This is why we can’t get accurate reporting out of Ferguson, Missouri and also illustrates why the media is so often badly informed on guns. 
Via: Guns Save Lives.net
“Police in Ferguson, MO arrested two journalists for covering the protests over their fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager eight times, ‘including in the back.’”
Stopped reading right there. When the first line includes proven BS, the rest isn’t worth reading.
Or in Chicago which the race baiters like Al Sharpton and Referent Jackkson (immitating Rush) and other race baiters ignore because the crime is black on black
Shackled?
BS. AGENDIZED.
They seek the destruction of Western/Christian Culture, that is their agenda, and they promote any side of any story that accomplishes that end.
They look more like shooters’ earplugs.
This is getting old. *rme*
I’m the first to recognize the importance of a free press.
That said, I have come to HATE, yes HATE, our so called MSM because only a Liberal will deny that they are severely biased in their reporting of the news. And, to make it all worse, it has become an “in your face” way of reporting for most of them with not even a semblance of neutrality.
So, as far as I am concerned, if a few of the slimy little twits get roughed up a little by the cops, and thrown in jail, so be it!
Maybe it's the "gas check" that confused him!
+1
They seek the destruction of Western/Christian Culture, that is their agenda, and they promote any side of any story that accomplishes that end.
(((
Exactly!
I expect Ferguson will become the next Detroit. What business would be dumb enough to open there?
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