Recently, an award winning journalist for a major newspaper declared that not all issues are debatable, that there isn't always two sides to a story, that certain points of view are indisputable fact and that disagreement on such matters should be banned. Moreover, what subjects can be discussed and debated should be determined by journalists and a certain group of select opinion makers. I don't know what you'd call this, but it certainly isn't objective, fact based journalism. And it definitely is not free speech. For example, this same "journalist" asserts that it is an indisputable fact that the police are "systematically" killing back people. I've been studying and writing about police-involved shootings for ten years, and it is my informed opinion that there is no evidence that remotely suggests that the police set out to kill anyone. Police officers routinely encounter people who are dangerous or appear dangerous, and they do their best to respond appropriately, regardless of race. Of course there are exceptions to this, but those incidents are rare. The police are not serial killers, and suggesting otherwise is reckless. Journalists should be guided by what they have learned through investigation, not simply by what they believe.
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It's all about "Is the head bleeding" or "Is the head dead yet." If it bleeds it leads" you are very likely aware of that. The militarization of our police officers make then think "It's us or them". Adversarial and combative. The need for armoured vehicles is really slim to not at all. They all add a wall of separation between "us" and "them".
ReplyDeleteMy brother is a 35 year veteran cop. He's funny, loves people and in all the years he's been a cop, he, nor his officers (he's a sargent), have ever thought their job was to beat the crap out of people with no provocation, arrest innocent people or (as far as I know) profiling. There are more bad eggs than we should be comfortable with~but most just really want to help people. Now that's from a Canadian perspective. We haven't militarized our police forces (yet *sigh*) but I'm with you.
ALSO you're absolutely correct that (some) journalists are despicable. But again, hopefully, the vast majority aren't like this.