I don't see a pro-authoritarian bent in the comments in this thread. What I see a lot of is people pointing out that the definition of "journalist" is very very loose in 2020, and that has an effect on the arrest stats. Many many many people have watched with their own eyes, live on video, what's been going on through the course of this year. We've seen CNN and ABC reporters shot with rubber bullets and accosted on live TV, but we've also seen a lot of "journalists" throwing rocks and molotov cocktails on live stream and doing other criminal acts.
There is a healthy and natural cynicism and suspicion of what appears to be a lop-sided reporting of the occurrences during the protests and riots in 2020. That suspicion may benefit people who are pro-authoritarian because they can play on it, but it doesn't necessarily mean those who are suspicious are pro-authoritarian themselves.
The article does a lot to try to explain what it /doesn't/ classify as a journalist, but never says what it does classify as a journalist. Those definitions are central to the point of the whether or not these stats are actually meaningful in any bigger sense than to say "well duh, of course more people were arrested during a year of protest and riots".
There is a healthy and natural cynicism and suspicion of what appears to be a lop-sided reporting of the occurrences during the protests and riots in 2020. That suspicion may benefit people who are pro-authoritarian because they can play on it, but it doesn't necessarily mean those who are suspicious are pro-authoritarian themselves.
The article does a lot to try to explain what it /doesn't/ classify as a journalist, but never says what it does classify as a journalist. Those definitions are central to the point of the whether or not these stats are actually meaningful in any bigger sense than to say "well duh, of course more people were arrested during a year of protest and riots".