Five journalist shot dead

[RedToothBrush]

Dell Cameron @ dellcam
NEW: The Capital Gazette shooter, Jarrod Ramos, was the subject of a Capital article in which he's described threatening and harassing a woman on Facebook.

According to the article, he had pleaded guilty in 2011 to a misdemeanor harassment charge.

Kim Bellware @ bellwak
Gutted about the shooting at the Capital Gazette, but am reminded in 2018, not everyone will be universally horrified that journalists are hurt or killed

Note: Milo Yiannopoulos just 2 days ago: “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight”

I don't know if this story will get much coverage in the UK.

It's HUGE.

It's about violence about women and their status in society, and the culture war for liberty and democracy in America right now.

Blink and you might miss this story. Or not understand it's significance.

When journalists start getting killed, it's BAD. Seriously bad.

This does not bode well for all our futures.

Was it to do with reporting on the situation with the sex industry there, Cheese?

Milo Yiannopoulos just 2 days ago: “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight”
Mass murder implies the victims were not deliberately chosen. That's not the case here.

RedToothBrush is absolutely correct in the way she has presented this.
The biggest respect you can give a journalist is to tell the story that their murderer tried to silence.

Thanks for this thread Red. Your analysis is really interesting.

Please don't be silenced (not that you would be).

The problem these days is that at lot, if not all, of journalists have a left wing bias and probably a left wing agenda.

This statement gets thrown around a lot but it is utter nonsense. Please turn to any Murdoch-owned media outlet for evidence.

I agree with the OP. I used to be a journalist and colleagues would sometimes talk about countries unsafe for us to visit... At that time, Russia had a spate of murders targeting journalists. I am saddened that the US could be added to the list. I would love it if this was not the case, but it would be naive to think that Trump’s anti-media rants are not influencing at least some of the population.

It's not about the left and right when it's journalists being murdered. That's lazy nonsense.

Let's spell it out. It's about open and closed society. In open society power is with the people as they can hold power to account. In closed society, the value of the press to protect the public is not there - it's been removed somehow. This allows abuse of the public to occur in multiple ways.

If you are characterising it as 'left wing', I'll take that to mean simply that you support oppression by the state.

It's about liberal democracy v authoritarianism. There are plenty of supposedly left wing governments around the world who dislike journalists. (China being top of the list)

rsf.org/en
This is reporters without borders website. They report on the threats on journalists internationally.

They reported on the 27th there have been 47 journalists killed this year so far. That's particularly high.

They have reported against violence against journalists for years. They are concerned about an upturn even in democracies.

It doesn't happen for no reason.

It's because democracy is facing a fundamental crisis.

It is deeply troubling.

Journalists represent the idea of truth in a democratic and open society. When people start to be killed or persecuted for their words, writings etc you’re in deep trouble because it indicates that society is not respectful of speech or that some ideas are seen as ‘needing’ silencing.

It has been so since time immemorial: see Galileo vs Pope (Urban the 8th?) - power of the church vs science.

We’ve had atheist bloggers killed in Bangladesh and the awful attack on Charlie Hebdo, showing that religious freedom of expression is curtailed.

Now this chap - and while full facts yet to be established it seems to be along the violent misogyny lines - DV, his exposure for DV and his rage at not being allowed to be a misogynist unfettered.

So it’s worrying because it shows an aspect of society that’s prevalent - hatred of women.

Journalists have a dangerous job, and they’re a vital part of a free society. My sincere sympathies to the families.

Also, absolutely agree with whoever upthread^^ said journalists are the canaries in the coal mine. Exactly!

Astonishing that other posters can’t/won’t see this.

Please don't be silenced (not that you would be).

Not on this subject.

When you can no longer speak the truth, we all lose.

Btw in case you didn't know Nazir Afzal quoted above is the lawyer who successfully prosecuted in the Rochdale scandal and he's been scathing about the leftist press who failed to blow the whistle 'because racism' in the past.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazir_Afzal

But yes, it's the leftist media.

We need both the left and right to do journalism to stop the proliferation of just total propaganda. It's the balance between the two that's crucial.

The right wing press in this country has exposed huge scandals that the left wouldn't go near.

Checks and balances.

This statement gets thrown around a lot but it is utter nonsense. Please turn to any Murdoch-owned media outlet for evidence

I hear that a lot too.

Show me some right wing bias then.

We got as far as page two before a MRA turned up to tell us that these murders are the fault of the left. Whatever the left's "part" has been in the culture wars, it hasn't been baying for the blood of journalists. That would be the right's part.

First rule of misogyny: women are to blame for men's actions. Apparently, the left are now to blame for the right's actions.

Journalists represent the idea of truth in a democratic and open society. When people start to be killed or persecuted for their words, writings etc you’re in deep trouble because it indicates that society is not respectful of speech or that some ideas are seen as ‘needing’ silencing

How did you feel about the Charlie Hebdo massacre? Honestly?

How did you feel about the Charlie Hebdo massacre? Honestly?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say "it was a bad thing".

Apparently, the left are now to blame for the right's actions

There are left wing journalists in America calling for "domestic terror attacks"

This is just the beginning

splinternews.com/this-is-just-the-beginning-1827099100

Show me some right wing bias then.

Find it yourself. Clearly you know how to use a keyboard?

@A4710Rider and @angryattackkittens here's a little bit about what has happened in Amsterdam in the past week. There isn't much in-depth reporting in English unfortunately, but this is a good start: apnews.com/d4b59725afb846aab202720bd2c3664c

For background:

The Panorama weekly is a magazine that is, frankly, a bit of a rag but that obviously doesn't mean it's ok to shoot the place up. (I'm just trying to give some context about what sort of publication it is; I don't know a UK equivalent.) It has news articles but it mostly covers true crime stories.

De Telegraaf is a national newspaper which is hardly highbrow but it's not in Daily Mail territory either. It's sold everywhere: newsagents, supermarkets etc, cafes often have copies for you to read. Everyone knows it.

The organised crime situation in Amsterdam (and in other places in the Netherlands) is pretty complicated and I certainly couldn't do it justice here (even if I knew all the details).

But some examples of what sort of things have been happening include: gunmen coming into a community centre on a Friday night, a place where kids were doing a cooking class and there were kickboxing lessons going on, shooting indiscriminately and killing a 17yo who later turned out to have absolutely no connection to the guy they were after. nltimes.nl/2018/01/29/teenager-killed-two-hurt-amsterdam-shooting-mayor-called-something

Gruesome murders which are very public: www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/severed-head-amsterdam-cafe-drugs-gang-war-netherlands

The brother of a crown witness in a gang-related case being murdered in cold blood: nltimes.nl/2018/03/29/key-witness-brother-assassinated-amsterdam - this man had no connection to the gang world at all, he simply had the misfortune to have a brother who was mixed up in it. Obviously it was a clear warning to other gang members that they might be putting their extended families at risk if they changed sides and turned crown witnesses.

Anyway these examples (two of them from 2018!) are just to give a brief picture of how there's plenty of crime going on here for reporters to delve into and try to inform the public about. And clearly there are people who are very much against that reporting.

Sorry for the derail and massive post!

Find it yourself. Clearly you know how to use a keyboard

Debating on the Internet 101:

If someone makes a statement and another person refutes the statement, the onus to prove the original statement is true is on the person making the original statement, not the inquisitor

I could give you 10 examples of Left Wing Media bias before 11.30 today if you like.

Debating on the Internet 202: don’t waste your energy debating the pointlessly argumentative.

Yes, because you'll probably lose the debate.

These anti-left posters are as tedious and energy draining as the antifa obsessives. Two sides of the same coin. and both are a complete waste of time.

The Daily Mail is not available on your Google?

This situation feels like the run up to the Spanish civil War.

These anti-left posters are as tedious and energy draining as the antifa obsessives. Two sides of the same coin. and both are a complete waste of time

Yes, and they have a habit of saying mean but true things about the left that I don't really like so I'd rather stick my fingers in my ears and look at a picture of Jeremy Corbyn than question my political position.

For the record, I'm very much centre but you have to call things as you see them.

heck, sometimes you even have to be a bit brave.

The Daily Mail is not available on your Google

Show me an article which is right wing bias, a specific article.

This situation feels like the run up to the Spanish civil War

I agree with you, it's even more the case in the USA. There are politicians over there actively calling on people to harm Trump and Trump supporters.

Milo Yiannopoulos just 2 days ago: “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight”.

re: Charlie Hebdo.

Honestly?

What they printed was offensive to a lot of people. But I don't think that you should kill people for their journalism. Ever.

It's about having a range of views in society. I don't have to agree with them all. In fact I SHOULD be upset by a lot of journalism. That's part of the point of journalism!

I generally think censorship tends to be counterproductive and can work against you. Censorship is just about the power of those who make the decisions about what to censor and what not to censor. When you advocate too much censorship you are run the risk giving power to an unseen and unaccountable group. It can become very unjust and inconsistent very easily. It can also hamper the ability to conduct essential investigative journalism.

Any censorship should be extremely limited and explicit in its definition. And there should be accountability and complete transparency over the censors.

That's why the management of censorship is not working on twitter and it's frankly not working on MN atm.

Where the line falls is a very difficult and sensitive subject. There is a whole raging argument over Levinson 2 on the whole subject. I am concerned about what might happen with that. I'm not going to go there on this thread though.

Where problems perhaps have crept in, is where authoritarianism has appeared in the guise of false liberalism through censorship. To characterise this as 'the left' is a fundamental lack of understanding in politics though.

This has been because of poor teaching of democratic principles and taking our freedoms and rights for granted. You have to understand the foundations of rights not just believe that something is a right.

As a rule, I think you have to be responsible with journalism. Journalists should be held accountable by society as to what they say and do, and understand the power they hold. What they say has influence. If that influence might harm society, you need to be able to damn well justify why you said it.

I am well aware this isn't always the case with some appalling examples - like the Minnie Dowler case.

Whether Charlie Hebdo were responsible, is perhaps a point of contention; but many other publications have crossed lines in various ways which make me feel very uncomfortable with.

But as I say, no one deserves to die over it.

The system isn't perfect. But there isn't a viable alternative that supports our freedom either.

I believe in the power of the truth and the right to speak the truth to power above most things.

Free journalism is essential to that. In recent years both the UK and US have slide down the Reporters without Borders free press index in an alarming way. For countries so proud of their freedom of speech, it is particularly concerning.