zlacker

>>sorami+(OP)
As so many of these incidents have happened over the last few days it seems like there should be a law that heightens the penalties when cops attack the press compared to the current penalties.

>>MBCook+Od
I don't think the press should have special protections over ordinary citizens. the penalty for any unwarranted use of force should be increased to whatever you would want for journalists.

>>leetcr+9g
Edit: I'm wrong. See below.

The reason they have special protection is because the constitution grants them special protection. The question of who is "the press" in this day and age where anyone can publish anything is certainly up for debate though.

>>jedber+xh
> The reason they have special protection is because the constitution grants them special protection.

I'm not a lawyer, but it doesn't

> There is no precedent supporting laws that attempt to distinguish between corporations which are deemed to be exempt as media corporations and those which are not. We have consistently rejected the proposition that the institutional press has any constitutional privilege beyond that of other speakers.

Supreme court in citizen's united, internal quotation marks omitted. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

> protections of the First Amendment do not turn on whether the defendant was a trained journalist, formally affiliated with traditional news entities, engaged in conflict-of-interest disclosure, went beyond just assembling others' writings, or tried to get both sides of a story.

9th circuit in Obsidian Finance Group, LLC v. Cox http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/01/17/12...