Much of the national media is behaving terribly during the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, and far too many police officers are behaving even worse toward the media.
The first is a matter of bad journalistic ethics that only internal reform can correct. The second involves dangerous activity that probably violates the law. The second should be punished by a swift firing from the relevant police forces, plus possible criminal prosecution.
Every national TV news outlet I’ve watched since the Floyd death with the exception of Fox News has bent over backward to explain and excuse the “anger” of rioters, citing cherry-picked statistics while ignoring other relevant stats, and merely tut-tutting mildly over “lesser” violence such as vandalism and looting.
Meanwhile, CNN, which I watch at length, has devolved into a ceaseless, daylong series of anti-Trump screeds, with supposed straight news hosts offering full-blown opinions so biased that it offends even someone like me, who is an original and continuing Never Trumper. Even Wolf Blitzer, whose work I generally admire, was well over the top on Monday afternoon as National Guard forces lined up outside the White House in large numbers. Even before they began to push protesters back to a wider perimeter long before the (unjustified) use of smoke canisters and tear gas and before Trump’s terrible anti-riot speech, Blitzer was on a jeremiad against Trump for “escalating” the situation.
Neither Blitzer nor his colleagues or guests even feigned neutrality. Not one could manage a single word in consideration of the possibility that massive manpower was justified.
Forget Trump: This is the White House. Our White House. It’s the home and the symbol of the executive branch of our legitimate, constitutional republic. In the two previous days, violent rioters had gotten dangerously close to it, injuring dozens of Secret Service personnel in the process. It would have been a dereliction of duty if more manpower had not been called in to defend it.
A day earlier, a CNN reporter (alas, I forget which one) went out of his way to say the Justice Department “is a political organization” and that, supposedly unlike “any” administration in recent memory, this Justice Department leadership is “particularly” close to the president.
Oh, really? I challenge CNN to produce any example, even one, of its reporters calling the department inherently political during the extraordinarily politicized reign of Attorney General Eric Holder, who openly described himself as President Barack Obama’s “wingman.”
On the other hand, Fox News, with a few exceptions, is just as bad in the other direction. Its coverage all day, every day, sounds like a pro-Trump screed, lashing out at whatever enemy Trump has identified for that day.
Are there any standards left for even attempted objectivity and balance on cable news? It seems not.
None of that, however, even remotely justifies the astonishing, frightening incidence of police violence against journalists covering the riots while clearly identifying themselves as “press” and trying to comply with police orders. In just five days, there have been 110 confirmed assaults or arrests. The most well-known event was likely when officers arrested a CNN crew, but perhaps the most brutal was a Minneapolis officer’s use of pepper spray directly to a reporter’s face despite the reporter repeatedly identifying himself as press and remaining prone on the ground.
This is unconscionable and unacceptable. The First Amendment exists for an excellent reason. Freedom of the media is a crucial bulwark against tyranny and a guarantor of liberty.
Yes, it is one thing if members of the media get tear gas in their eyes if they are amid a large crowd being dispersed because of violence. That’s collateral damage, not aimed specifically at the working press. But that’s not what is happening in most of the 110 cases. Those involve direct, intentional targeting of media personnel.
In response to these incidents, the leadership of every single police force across the country or the mayor or county executive overseeing each law enforcement authority should publicly and privately give this message to all their officers: If you arrest or target specific force against any clearly identified member of the working media, then unless there was overwhelming provocation from that journalist, you will be immediately suspended, probably fired, and possibly subject to criminal prosecution.
And then those warnings should be vigorously enforced. Moreover, all fellow officers should be told that if they witness such actions without trying to stop them or reporting them, they too will be disciplined.
Enough is enough. The police war on journalists must end.
