Nearly Everything Wrong with Modern Journalism In One Tweet

Two reporters, one from the Washington Post and one from the Huffington Post, were arrested in Ferguson, MO last night. Neither were doing anything wrong. Both were apparently just recharging the phones and computers in a McDonalds when police arrested them, and slammed one reporter’s head into a glass door and sarcastically apologized.

Reporter Stefan Becket thought the crime so severe that he carved out a new journalist privilege in the Constitution.

Here's the screen shot of the deleted tweet: pic.twitter.com/7S2J37nDzU

— Cuffé (@CuffyMeh) August 14, 2014

He deleted the tweet and admitted that it was stupid.

Sorry, that was stupid. Deleted. My point was that the outsized attention is understandable because the arrest crossed a definitive line.

— Stefan Becket (@stefanjbecket) August 14, 2014

Police have been crossing all sorts of lines for several days in Ferguson. So have the rioters. If there was ever a “cycle of violence,” we’re seeing it spiral up in Ferguson.

But no, the two reporters’ arrests didn’t attract extra attention just because a line was crossed. They attracted attention because they’re reporters and have platforms to protest apart from marching in the streets, and they have editors and fellow journalists who will write about them.

Now, if we could just get mainstream media reporters to admit that they’re all in the tank for the Democrats, and that they’re all left of center in their worldview…