Hey, Journalists!

Up Your Game in Demonstration Coverage

 THE BET:
I have a standing bet with several conservative friends. I bet that "when the truth comes out" (Har, har), it will be proven that most of the non-peaceful, burning-looting stuff was done by right wing radical groups like the Boogaloo bunch, The Proud Bois, and various "militias." But how much of that violence really happened?

 THE SEARCH: 
I spent almost an hour Google/Bing/Yahoo-ing trying to answer one question, "What proportion of the huge BLM demonstrations were actually violent?"  VERY hard to find that information.
Lots of folks; no smoke

 Then I saw this article on the NeimanLab site.  ...One line caught my attention:

 "There’s been little coverage that quantifies the proportion of protests that are violent versus those that are peaceful."


Duh. So yeah, journos, don't just aim our attention at the violence without including the vital context of how big a deal it is. Puleeze!  Fire and violence makes for exciting video, but without context, it is grossly misleading. Not your job, grossly misleading us.  SOMEBODY might exploit the mislead and send in the storm troopers!

BIG P.S.  ...And every time you write about "Payroll Taxes" add "Which pays for Social Security and Medicare."  Kind of important that people know how profoundly stupid cutting those taxes is UNLESS the cutters are trying to kill Social Security and Medicare!!

Comments

Stephan Helgesen said…
It would seem that conspiracy theorists are alive and well on this blog and that may be the last gasp of a shriveling and bankrupt doctrine that has resorted to lies to sell its ideology to an ageing group of seriously delusional partisans.
2:46 PM
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