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“Walking in circles, and then realizing later on that it was simply an unconstitutional rule, it changed the way I thought about reporting — it made me think I have to question everything, including the rules of our reporting.” — @Yamiche https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/business/media/new-york-times-washington-post-protests.html
“The longer you stayed, the more folks you talked to, and the more information that emerged, it became apparent that the official account was a load of crap.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/07/business/media/new-york-times-washington-post-protests.amp.html?referringSource=articleShare#click=https://t.co/LEgR6Cm7Jm
That really was the experience of Ferguson: being lied to over and over and over again by a smorgasbord of law enforcement organizations that were brutalizing and snatching people up for offenses like pausing on a sidewalk in broad daylight.
Quick followup: I had a few more “aha” moments in Ferguson than I’d care to admit, but covering St. Louis County municipal "courts" with @MzzzMariah and producing this video with @emilykassie really transformed my approach to criminal justice reporting.
They were literally holding monthly detention sessions for poor adults.
There wasn’t a “few bad apples” problem in St. Louis County. There was a fundamentally broken and exploitative system that people thought was somehow normal.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/st-louis-county-municipal-courts_n_6896550
There wasn’t a “few bad apples” problem in St. Louis County. There was a fundamentally broken and exploitative system that people thought was somehow normal.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/st-louis-county-municipal-courts_n_6896550
Basically everyone agreed that St. Louis County municipal courts were awful. The network of tiny municipalities were a direct product of racism and segregation. But years later, "what we still have.. is a system that’s targeting poor black people.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/st-louis-county-municipal-courts-ferguson_n_59b95ee9e4b0edff97188a1f
