Idiots on the news

[Jeff Thomas]

Flipped on the local evening news to see what’s going on, mostly thinking about the forest fires in Eastern Washington. So first they talked about two people shot in Tacoma, then it was somebody shot in another part of Tacoma, then it was a guy found in his car in North Seattle with a bullet hole in his head, then somebody shot in Vancouver, Washington. After six straight minutes of that nonsense, they switched to a report about police reforms that go into effect tomorrow, no use of tear gas, de-escalation of the mentally ill, restrictions on use of force, blah blah blah.
At that point I changed the channel. I don’t know how the police put up with this crap. I think at some point I expect them all to just quit (Seattle is already short something over a hundred officers). I imagine a mass walkout by the cops would get ugly fast, but it may be what’s needed, unless even that isn’t enough.

 

[bintananth]

Remember, "If it bleeds, it leads."

"People got shot" is going to draw a much larger audience than something like "City council votes to raise/cut funding for the city parks department" even though the latter will directly affect the audience members while the former usually doesn't.