Suppression Of The Press By Ferguson Police

"Bad Black People." Why Bill O'Reilly Is Wrong Even When He's Right"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/08/bad-black-people-why-bill-oreilly-is.html

***

"Actor Jesse Williams Gets Real About The Relentless Dehumanization Of Black Males"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/08/actor-jesse-williams-gets-real-about.html

***

Read this reporter's account of how police treated her and a colleague. "I had never witnessed police treat journalists like this in the four years I worked as a crime reporter in South Florida. Some officers have tried to keep me away from crime scenes, but never stopped me from covering a story altogether. It was also the first time I had ever felt afraid of a police officer. Flores and I felt far more afraid of them than we did of any protesters. What the Ferguson police have done to journalists and demonstrators brings up First Amendment issues, said John Watson, a lawyer and a media law professor at American University in Washington." Alexia Campbell and Reena Flores in National Journal.

Explainer: Here's a list of potentially unconstitutional things the police have done in Ferguson. Max Ehrenfreund in The Washington Post.

Social media didn't just report on the protests. It altered them. "People in Ferguson, Mo., didn't wait for news conferences, petitions or legal action to bring national attention to their streets after a police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teen. They snapped a photo. They used a hashtag. And, in the span of five days, their growing, stinging social media cloud of real-time updates shaped a raw public discourse about the teen, Michael Brown, race relations and police force in the USA. 'Because of social media, the police don't have control of this story,' said David Karpf, assistant professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University." Lindsay Deutsch and Jolie Lee in USA Today.

Charts: Watch Twitter explode, along with Ferguson. Brian Fung in The Washington Post.

@NiemanLab: Events in Ferguson underscore the importance of access to a free Internet http://nie.mn/VpE1Ef

Explainer: How Anonymous got it right and wrong in Ferguson. Andrea Peterson in The Washington Post.

Not only can you record the police. Maybe the police should record themselves. "Courts have held that, as a general rule, individuals have a right to record law enforcement officers carrying out their duties in public spaces....Many police stations have long recorded at least some of their officers' interactions with the public, most frequently through dashboard cameras that capture traffic stops....But there's also a growing movement in the United States to have on-duty officers use body cameras to record their interactions with the public." Andrea Peterson in The Washington Post.

MacGILLIS: The disturbing trend toward secrecy in American policing. "I suspect two separate dynamics are at play. One is related to the same self-aggrandizement that has led local law enforcement agencies to load up on military-style heavy weaponry and armor—the more that local police view themselves as engaged in the grand project of “homeland security,” the more they feel justified in mimicking the national security state’s penchant for secrecy. The other dynamic is the withering of local journalism. The fewer reporters there are engaged in routine coverage of the cop beat, the more likely police are to start viewing requests for information as a rare and nettlesome importunity" Alec MacGillis in The New Republic.