The police and police wives in my family were already very cynical of journalists way back before Trump got roasted at the White House Correspondent's Dinner.
Every journo article that criticizes the work of an officer, a criminal case of the department, or any slight of the honor/reverence that Blue Liners have for the profession / individual LEOs is taken very seriously. The irony is that the journos can't publish accurate information without sources and police and their families don't/won't/can't be sources which would make their stories more accurate.
In the end, you get a media outlet either echoing the statement of the PR department of the Police or you get an investigative reporter doing the actual "checks and balances" role of the media. I just think police culture (and the legal/employment restrictions placed on officers) can't be comfortable with freedom of the press.
That's not true at all. Media coverage of law enforcement matters is filled with quotes, anonymous and named, from the police community. That's not less true right now.
There's nothing stopping these people from talking to the press. Like anyone with an opinion, they're happy to do it for the most part.
>can't be comfortable with freedom of the press.
I can see that - but equally, while each institution has an extreme pole it pulls towards, there are usually a few cooler heads who keep everybody grounded. Beating up journalists is an inherently self-destructive thing to do, no matter what you feel about them - ultimately, they have power, and if you beat them up, they're going to hold a grudge.
Perhaps the thing that Trump is really doing is demonstrating that, for whatever reason, normal rules no longer apply. You can build a wall in the desert. You can threaten people with real nuclear weapons on twitter. You can hit that jerk journalist who thinks he's smarter than you.
Anyhow, it's very strange. If I was in the US, I'd definitely be trying to diversify out of the country. Norms are what make a civilization. When they start getting broken from the top down, anything can happen.
It's true that police officers and their families do have 1st Amendment protections, but they are also governed by employment law and can be castigated by brass, fellow officers if they cause ripples which screw up a case or department morale.
> There's nothing stopping these people from talking to the press.
If you work for a company, were told that only the communications office was allowed to talk to the press about company business, the press asked you for a quote about something your company did, and you undermined the company's product/feature/initiative in a named quote, do you think your employer has the legal right to fire you for insubordination?
If it's police wives, they probably aren't allowed to have the information by department policy, so the officer who passed on that information could (and should) receive a reprimand.
With legal cases, police officers can't just go talking to press about a case because it could be used by the defense attorney to muddy the facts of the investigation or get some evidence thrown out.
Do you remember the helicopters shooting at helpers in ambulances? The drones being sent to weedings? The children being shoot in beaches?
If somebody can kill Osama Bin Laden without a trial and to became an hero, and other can kill Soleimani without a trial, then other can kill Floyd also without a trial, or beat Ian Murdock, or make Aaron Swartz commit suicide...
Extrajudicial executions are the new normal, and this magic trick was being slowly deployed in front of our very eyes, for years. And anybody is in the menu. We all travel in the meat train now. All is allowed, because we accepted the new contract.
Interestingly, the set of people complaining about each's actions are almost completely disjoint.