Once Again, Media Can’t Help But to Call Violent Riot a ‘Protest’

By Alex GriswoldFeb 2nd, 2017, 12:06 pm
 

Regular readers will recall this is a perennial pet peeve of mine.

Note that the first two tweets I cited are also part of a larger trend I’m noticing, where outlets choose to use sanitized images to mischaracterize the event in question. Why, how could anyone oppose those nice looking students holding up their signs? The Slate headline is also wildly misleading; Trump’s concern wasn’t the protests, it was “[practicing] violence on innocent people with a different point of view.”

“Protesters” don’t shoot fireworks at police officers, they don’t throw smoke bombs, they don’t use flares, and they don’t break fences and windows. They definitely don’t set fires, beat people unconscious with metal poles, rob ATMs, swarm and destroy cars, or attack women in Trump hats. “Rioters” do that. Alternatively, “criminals” or “thugs.”

I’ll repeat what I said the last time this came up: this is actually a disservice to the anti-Milo, anti-Trump, anti-whatever protesters. Because when “protester” is used as a catch-all to include the peaceful and the violent alike, the public will begin to unfairly conflate the two. That sanitizes the violence, but simultaneously casts practicing a fundamental right as an accessory to criminality.

[Image via screengrab]

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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