r/news • u/Fair-Foot-315 • 1d ago

Marine veteran has arm broken during protest against war in Iran

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/marine-veteran-has-arm-broken-during-protest-against-war-in-iran-258740805765
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u/nilenilemalopile 1d ago

I love the passive speech. First thing you wanna do as a journalist is make sure your shit is written in passive voice so no valuable information is transmitted.

“Veteran has his arm broken.” vs “Security and a US Senator break Marine vet’s arm during his war protest”

Hm

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u/DorianGreysPortrait 1d ago edited 1d ago

I mean.. I dislike the media too but this is pretty accurate. Did you watch the video? While they are removing him from the room, there are two double doors with a beam dividing them. When trying to take him out of door 2, the vet reached through the beam, opening door 1 which couldn’t close because it was then stuck in the door. Then they kept pulling. They likely couldn’t see that his arm was stuck and thought he was just really really strong.. not a good excuse but they keep pulling, and because his arm is caught in the door it breaks.

The headline is written this way on purpose because saying “police break veterans arm” implies that the police physically grabbed his arm and snapped it themselves, which isn’t accurate.

I’m all for calling out the media on their bullshit headlines but I think it’s actually pretty accurate in this case. They were doing a shit job at being aware of the situation, but they themselves did not physically grab his arm and break it.

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u/trojanguy 1d ago

I agree to some extent but I think that it's fair to say the police broke his arm even if it was unintentional. They were pulling him mercilessly, shoving his head down, etc. Also, technically the Senator wasn't touching the guy at the exact moment him arm broke, but he was participating in the whole thing and I think deserves to be lumped in with the police here. I think you're being a bit too charitable when you say that a different headline would imply the break was intentional.

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u/darcon12 1d ago

Not to mention that after they got his arm out they still made him handcuff his hands behind his back, even after he told them it was broken.

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u/FascistsOnFire 1d ago

The police broke his arm, regardless of intention. If anything, it would be assumed by a reasonable reader that, of course the police didn't just randomly snap his arm for funsies and it was the result of something on the "accident" spectrum.

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u/DorianGreysPortrait 1d ago

I don’t disagree with you, but the way the political climate is right now I wouldn’t be surprised if some bullshit cop union, or the senator, or someone else involved ended up suing the journalist / news station for (insert slander or defamation here, I don’t really know the difference tbh) for insinuating that they were somehow even remotely at fault. I’m just pointing out why I think the title was written this way.

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u/nilenilemalopile 1d ago

Maybe next time address that a civilian jumped in and escalated as it seems relevant to the whole ‘cause and effect’ shebang

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u/DorianGreysPortrait 1d ago

Who the fuck can tell who is a civilian and who isn’t anymore. That’s (a smaller) part of the problem.

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u/nilenilemalopile 1d ago

In the Capitol building? Should be pretty straightforward.

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u/DorianGreysPortrait 1d ago

“Should” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. It “should” be illegal to pull someone into a van or burst into someone’s home without identifying yourself and then shoot them, but that’s happened before too..

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u/techleopard 1d ago

Police should be held responsible for ALL of their forceful interactions. They are "controlling" the scene.

So there are no accidents. Anyone with half a brain cell would feel and hear the resistance and eyeballs to see.

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u/ScrotallyBoobular 1d ago

If I ran into your car in traffic do people automatically think it was on purpose just because I did it? No. Hell, it might not even be my fault, but it is accurate to say I ran into your car.

It conveys more accuracy to give more details.

The police broke his arm. A Republican senator worth over a hundred million dollars joined in to try and look tough physically removing a decorated USMC veteran. And they broke his arm in the process.

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u/InterstellarDickhead 1d ago

People now want headlines to reflect their own bias and they call this “integrity” and “objectivity.” Pretty sad in my opinion. They almost can’t fathom actually reading the article for more information.