30.8 - For the Record: biased media

For the Record: biased media

For the Record: a perfect example of how bad our media really is and how we are uninformed, malinformed, and misinformed.

On January 24, US News + World Report ran an article about the mass arrest of protesters at TheRumps' inauguration. The headline was, quoting,

"Inauguration Mass Arrest of Protesters, Journalists a Throwback With a Familiar Face, Attorneys Say"

with the subhead of

"The city’s interim police chief was found responsible in the past for violating protesters' rights, costing the city millions."

Even though the article was about the potential illegality of mass arrests without probable cause, it was illustrated with a picture of someone dressed in black throwing a trashcan through the window of a Starbucks. What that had to do with the story other than to prejudice readers against the arrested protesters was unclear.

On June 21, US News + World Report ran an article about a suit alleging serious police misconduct in dealing with those same wrongfully-arrested protesters. It was headlined

"Lawsuit: Police Laughed While Rectally Probing Inauguration Mass-Arrest Group, Didn't Change Gloves."

And it was illustrated with that same image of a trash can through a window. Again, how that was connected to the substance of the story went unexplained.