Silencing of the Main Stream Media

Silencing of the Main Stream Media 

I sent this to The Guardian and The LA Times just now. It's not well written. But it highlights the frighteningly militant tactics enacted by LAPD tonight. The Media Pool I revealed late last night, written about in this great LA Weekly article, and on the front page of yesterday's Los Angeles Times:

The city's concern about its image was underscored Monday when police announced they would be allowing only a small group of print, television and radio journalists past police lines when the eviction is finally carried out. Police said the rules were to protect journalists from being harmed during the operation.

This media pool drew mainstream media into the inner circle, where they were treated to a display of courteous policing and nonviolence by the police. Even I was impressed by the police. The operation was smooth and efficient and tactical.

Then the pool media was divided from the regular media, and kept in the inner circle. They were not present to witness the brutality and violence enacted by LAPD officers who were kettling and running after protestors in order to beat them outside the park and mainstream media attention. LAPD smoothly kept MSM from witnessing this, and tried to control other media by constant kettling and dividing of the crowd.

The Mainstream Media were deliberately obstructed from reporting, and were complicit in their own silencing - as this updated extract from the LA Weekly makes horrifically clear:

Update No. 4: So KCAL9 was running an awesome aerial live stream of the massive deployment of 1,000-plus LAPD officers from Dodger Stadium to City Hall. But then -- get this -- they reportedly stopped the stream because they had "made an agreement with LAPD not to reveal their tactics," and wanted to protect the integrity of the operation.