Journalists can print whatever they want, and there are zero consequences.
There are no watch dog organizations, and if you question them online, you will just get banned.
Apparently, in the UK, if you question them in real life, you will be charged with a crime.
A man has been charged with a public order offence, Scotland Yard has said, after footage online showed a journalist being confronted and chased by a group of protesters in Whitehall.
Martin Hockridge, 57, was charged with an offence under section 4A of the Public Order Act; namely using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards another person with the intention to cause them harassment, alarm or distress.
This is the guy
This is a thing he wrote on social media
Hockridge, who is from Harpenden, Hertfordshire, will appear at Westminster magistrates court on Tuesday 29 June. He was interviewed under caution at a Hertfordshire police station and charged on Tuesday evening.
Crowds had gathered in Westminster on Monday to protest against the government’s four-week extension of coronavirus restrictions in England. Footage posted on social media showed demonstrators shouting abuse at the BBC journalist Nick Watt as he tried to walk down the street.
The images showed the political editor of the BBC’s Newsnight programme, who was wearing a BBC lanyard, doubling back and running through a group of people, some of whom were shouting “traitor” and other slurs at him, before he made it beyond a line of police officers near Downing Street.
The Guardian adds that the police are asking for snitches to identify the rest of the people in the video, so they can also be charged with crimes related to yelling at a journalist.
Literally, all they did was yell at him and call him a traitor for hoaxing the coronavirus.
This is illegal now. You have to agree with journalists and love them. If you see them in public, you have to praise them for being so truthful – particularly about the deadly coronavirus.
Virtually all of the politicians, as well as other members of the journalist caste condemned this atrocious act of disagreeing with a sacred conveyer of absolute truth.
Disgraceful to see the hounding of Nick Watt doing his job.
The media must be able to report the facts without fear or favour – they are the lifeblood of our democracy.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) June 15, 2021
The video of @BBCNewsnight's Nick Watt being abused by a mob is appalling and distressing.
This behaviour is never acceptable.
— Priti Patel (@pritipatel) June 15, 2021
This is horrifying. Nick Watt is such a decent guy. https://t.co/fsAc7JeH5k
— Tim Walker (@ThatTimWalker) June 15, 2021
Statement on incident involving BBC journalist Nick Watt. pic.twitter.com/px3v1NfrqS
— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) June 15, 2021
Disgraceful treatment of @BBCNewsnight Nick Watt. A fine reporter and good friend. Subjected to the intimidation and thuggery of the mob. Simply terrible. Solidarity with Nick. https://t.co/rEjooI9IvV
— Andrew Neil (@afneil) June 15, 2021
Absolutely horrific. Solidarity with Nick Watt. It is a fundamental principle of any democracy that journalists are free to do their jobs without intimidation. https://t.co/J5bRhZsnFs
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) June 15, 2021
Disturbing footage of @BBCNewsnight’s Nick Watt, being pursued by anti-lockdown protesters@umairh wrote recently “Britain — the gentle, wise, intelligent, expansive one — was put to the torch. It became a nation afflicted by a fever dream of nationalism” https://t.co/kdBsB4WfmY https://t.co/jBJYabO0cP
— Stefan Simanowitz (@StefSimanowitz) June 15, 2021
Journalists and government officials both want this laddie thrown in the dock – because a movement of peasants standing up to the ruling class can quickly spiral, if it isn’t clamped down on quickly.
In the Ukraine a few years ago there was a movement of the peasants grabbing politicians and throwing them in trash cans.
Female Politician from Ukraine thrown in a trash can.These men have no honor or self-respect https://t.co/PjOZde5hqy pic.twitter.com/50rePJzr1W
— Dawood (@Suleiman_Dawood) November 1, 2014
Journalists are servants of the ruling class, and a protected class. You people think this is some kind of joke or strained metaphor when we say that they are a “priesthood” – but that is literally what journalists are. They are a class of people imbued by the state power with the right to declare what is and isn’t truth.
A movement against journalists would be a movement directly against the entrenched power of the establishment, as these rats are the frontline defenders of this system.