It’s Now Guns Vs. Cameras in Ferguson

A SWAT team. To take out cameras. In the United States of America. Because you know how dangerous it is when people start pointing those things around.

…To be clear, I’m not saying that journalists are somehow sacrosanct, or that an injury to a law-abiding reporter matters more than an injury to a law-abiding regular citizen.

But it does matter.

It matters, both morally and practically, that police took two journalists into custody for, essentially, covering the police. It matters morally because having media at a confrontation like this is a way of bringing the world in. When journalists are forced out of the scene, you’re cut out of the picture. And when there isn’t an observer with the power to get word out, widely and quickly, then bad actors—whoever they are—can act in secret.

…If police in Missouri are willing to do this to people with a media platform, how, it’s reasonable to ask, will they treat someone who doesn’t?

…Keep videotaping.

So, so well said.