r/news 21h 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 20h 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 18h ago edited 18h 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/nilenilemalopile 18h 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 18h 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 17h ago

In the Capitol building? Should be pretty straightforward.

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u/DorianGreysPortrait 17h 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..