>This article reads like there is a lot of information missing, yet people seem very eager to fill in the gaps - as we can see from your comment that the cops "arrested a random black dude."

This is spot on. I hope no one assumes it as Pro-Cop (or anti for that matter). Journalism is fucked. Police misconduct and brutality absolutely Should be reported on. However, any story about cops is usually total "click-bait" these days because it's about 1,000,000 times more likely to be clicked on than an article about, my cat or something. In other words, very lucrative. Therefore the financial push to produce these kind of articles as rapidly and abundantly as possible (for clicks, not justice or accurate info) mires journalistic integrity.

Where you're hearing a "bad cop story" it often turns out to be a bad cop. Not giving them especially the RPD benefit of the doubt. However:

I don't know the psychological terms. But we all know law enforcement and journalism have a fuck-ton of ethical, moral, and professional major issues right now. And especially the RTD.

Basically, as soon as it appears to be a bad cop story (or anything else intense, missing kid, child abuse, bad teacher etc.), people suddenly forget how fucked, and how there are no standards for journalism anymore. Most of what we read is simply padding for ads.

I hope that makes sense. Basically it's possible to think cops are bad and journalism is bad. And not have a knee-jerk reaction to the buzzwords we've been researched by online tracking and targeting, to be presented exactly what we wanna see, not see what we don't want to see. By "don't want to see" I mean "less likely to click the headline, therefore less ad money."

Ok now I'm starting to ramble about targeted ads. Everyone knows those are unethical. They target you with the exact kind of articles you're mostly to click, which ads catered to the general lifestyle of the target group.

In other words, police brutality is real. But so is bad journalism. Don't get overwhelmed when they happen simultaneously.

Social media is fucked in the same way. Before you downvote, Ask yourself this... How many times have you seen a video posted on Reddit (any subject, doesn't have to be cops)... And then seen a truncated version reposted later with a completely different, equally convincing narrative? That's Journalism 101. You can't trust it's good journalism just because it's covering an important subject matter. They have no pressure or reason to complicate their process by getting tripped up by standards of accuracy, ethics, morality, saying who's financially backing them, etc. Etc.

Also Edit: How many times have you seen something in person that makes the local news, and then the local news gets it all wrong? Every time pretty much.