Freedom of the Press threatened in Texas

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

https://reason.com/2022/11/04/this-cour ... -in-texas/

This sounds pretty scary. Is it as bad as it looks are am I reading it too grimly?

[ProfessorDetective]

Yeah, this looks not great.

[hammerofglass]

Good luck Tuesday Texas, sounds like you need it.

[pilight]

Authoritarians hate the concept of a free press

[clearspira]

''In April 2017, Villarreal, who reports near the U.S.-Mexico border, broke a story about a Border Patrol agent who committed suicide. A month later, she released the surname of a family involved in a fatal car accident.''

Genuine question: why does the public need to know about a policeman who committed suicide or the surname of a family killed in a car crash? Yeah, yeah, ''free press'' blah, blah. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about WHY she felt that she needed to intrude upon the private grief of these people. MAYBE if the copper committed suicide after beating a prisoner to death I could understand - but it doesn't say that. For all we know, his wife left him or his kids got ill or something.

Or to put this another way, would YOU be happy if she came along and plastered the suicide of your father or brother or husband across the internet? In the UK, we would call this ''cheap and shitty tabloid journalism.''

[Riedquat]

Or to put this another way, would YOU be happy if she came along and plastered the suicide of your father or brother or husband across the internet? In the UK, we would call this ''cheap and shitty tabloid journalism.''

I.e. exactly the type of journalism we get here, but we don't arrest people for it, thank goodness. It's the sort of behaviour I don't like to see but neither do I believe it's something to be outlawed, that's just as (or more) offensive.

[Frustration]

It's not the reporting that makes people happy that needs to be protected.

It's remarkable how much the idea of tolerance has been discredited in this society.

[pilight]

It's remarkable how much the idea of tolerance has been discredited in this society.

The people who talk about tolerance want to be tolerated, they do not want to tolerate others.

[clearspira]

It's remarkable how much the idea of tolerance has been discredited in this society.

The people who talk about tolerance want to be tolerated, they do not want to tolerate others.

Yep. Exactly. A quick blast through Twitter will find plenty of examples of that.

[Frustration]

The people who talk about tolerance want to be tolerated, they do not want to tolerate others.

Yes. So many of them think 'tolerance' means "I don't have to put up with anything I don't like, but everyone has to put up with what I approve of."

Free speech isn't just a matter of law but of culture and general societal agreement... and it's eroding rapidly.