Journalists caught in the violent middle as Trump vows ‘law and order’

close

Video

Journalists injured, arrested while reporting on protests nationwide

The Hill media reporter Joe Concha weighs in on attacks and harassment reporters are facing while covering protests.

This is a heartbreaking time for our country, and journalists are caught squarely in the middle.

In covering the riots that have gripped cities across the country, they have been arrested, assaulted and shot, in some cases seemingly targeted by aggressive police tactics and in others besieged by angry protesters.

I don’t expect much sympathy for my much-maligned profession, but it’s a reminder that many journalists don’t just sit in climate-controlled studios, and a reflection of the broader fissions in our society.

At the same time, the media’s relentless focus on President Trump has cast him as essentially missing in action during this crisis, which may have prompted him--four hours after his press secretary said there was no need for a speech--to make a Rose Garden statement last night.

And by declaring “I am your president of law and order,” he followed the Nixon playbook of 1968 and sought to make violent protest, not police brutality, the dominant issue in this election year.

On the metaphor front, journalists seized on the president retreating to an underground bunker while rock-throwing protesters gathered strength outside the White House, which is unfair because the Secret Service made that call.

In the wake of the brutal killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, pundits and politicians have been faced with the dual challenge of grappling with the black community’s anger and frustration while cracking down on the violence and lawlessness that obscures that cause.

WILL TRUMP FORCE SOCIAL MEDIA TO CLEAN UP THEIR ACT?

When Omar Jiminez, a black reporter for CNN, was arrested by Minnesota state police despite repeatedly offering to move, it was an outrage that led Gov. Tim Walz to apologize to the network. MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi and correspondent Garrett Haake have both been struck by rubber bullets. Police in numerous instances have either been reckless or antagonistic when it comes to journalists who are trying to cover the urban chaos.

Another victim in Minneapolis, Linda Tirado, a freelance photographer and activist, was shot in the left eye and says she has permanently lost vision in that eye.

On the other side, protesters smashed windows and defaced the famous red logo at CNN headquarters in Atlanta. In Washington, protesters threw punches and bottles as they chased a Fox News crew before the journalists found a police cruiser, a situation that anchor Leland Vittert compared to his coverage of Egypt’s Tahrir Square uprising. In Pittsburgh, KDKA photojournalist Ian Smith was brutally beaten by demonstrators and said another group saved his life by pulling him to safety.

Even the harshest critics of the media should decry these abominable tactics by both the police and the protesters, though in fairness the cops are often overwhelmed and numerous officers have been injured in the riots.

As for the coverage, a Washington Post news story said yesterday: “Never in the 1,227 days of Trump’s presidency has the nation seemed to cry out for leadership as it did Sunday, yet Trump made no attempt to provide it.

“That was by design. Trump and some of his advisers calculated that he should not speak to the nation because he had nothing new to say and had no tangible policy or action to announce yet, according to a senior administration official. Evidently not feeling an urgent motivation Sunday to try to bring people together, he stayed silent.”

“Privately,” says the New York Times, “advisers complained about his tweets, acknowledging that they were pouring fuel on an already incendiary situation.” These included the missive about “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” which Trump later clarified by saying he meant people in the crowds could be hurt.

SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE'S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF OF THE DAY'S HOTTEST STORIES

Now it’s no secret that the president has struggled in the area of race relations. There was Charlottesville, of course, and his back-where-they-came-from tweets about members of the Squad, and denigrating Baltimore as “a rat and rodent infested mess.”

Trump also has an instinct to rally his side against the other side, which makes it harder to unite the country. He blamed Democrats when the pandemic exploded and blamed Democratic mayors and governors for not controlling the urban violence. In fact, he told governors on a conference call yesterday that most of them are “weak” and “you have to dominate or you’ll look like a bunch of jerks.”

He has blamed the media on both fronts as well. And in the past week he has gone after China, the WHO and Joe Scarborough.

But there is a level on which the president is getting a bum rap. He said right away he was shocked by the video of Floyd being killed by an officer’s knee pressing against his neck for nine minutes.

At the SpaceX launch in Florida on Saturday, Trump called Floyd’s death “a grave tragedy. It should never have happened. It has filled Americans all over the country with horror, anger and grief.” Those remarks got little attention.

In the same comments, Trump said he was allied with people seeking justice and peace, but opposed to “anyone exploiting this tragedy to loot, rob, attack, and menace.”

But the president was all tough talk last night, with just a nod to peaceful protest, in a split-screen moment when riot police stood guard at Lafayette Park across from the White House. He railed against “professional anarchists,” Antifa and “violent mobs,” spoke of innocent people being killed and the capital’s monuments defaced. “These are acts of domestic terror,” he declared, “a crime against God,” and vowed to deploy the military. Donald Trump had chosen his side.

Any public official, Democrat or Republican, has to take the stance that what happened to Floyd is reprehensible but that lawlessness is unacceptable. At the moment, the violence from New York to Philadelphia to Minneapolis to Santa Monica is overshadowing the cause that the protesters profess to embrace.

The looting and the fires and the rock-throwing do more than jeopardize the safety of journalists and of community residents; they change the national subject from police brutality to law and order. And, as happened after the 1968 riots, that can cause a political backlash that can last for years.