Portside

• Copspeak: 7 Ways Journalists Use Police Jargon to Obscure the Truth – Adam Johnson (FAIR)
• After Dallas Shootings, Police Arrest People for Criticizing Cops on Facebook and Twitter – Naomi LaChance (The Intercept)
• North Carolina Holds Police Camera Videos From Public Record – Anna Gronewold (ABC News)
• A Tug-of-War for Power in Turkey, With Journalists in the Middle – Benjamin Mullin (Poynter)
• Pokemon Go: A Primer for Organizers – thelearnedfangirl (Cultural Pulse)
• How the Internet was Invented – Ben Tarnoff (Guardian)

Copspeak: 7 Ways Journalists Use Police Jargon to Obscure the Truth

By Adam Johnson
July 11, 2016
FAIR
The close relationship between reporters and police is often marked by diffusion of language from the police PR team to the front page. In the wake of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, here are some examples of how “copspeak” — or jargon used by police departments — is internalized by journalists covering police violence, and how it affects the public’s perception of crime and police brutality.

After Dallas Shootings, Police Arrest People for Criticizing Cops on Facebook and Twitter

By Naomi LaChance
July 12, 2016
The Intercept
Four men in Detroit were arrested over the past week for posts on social media that the police chief called threatening. One tweet that led to an arrest said that Micah Johnson, the man who shot police officers in Dallas last week, was a hero. None of the men have been named, nor have they been charged.
Several police departments across the country have arrested individuals for posts on social media accounts, often from citizen tips — raising concerns among free speech advocates.
 

North Carolina Holds Police Camera Videos From Public Record

By Anna Gronewold
July 11, 2016,
ABC News
Recordings from law enforcement body and dashboard cameras will not be considered public records in North Carolina under a law signed Monday by Gov. Pat McCrory.
Bystander videos posted online have fueled protests nationwide after last week's killings of black men by white officers in Louisiana and Minnesota, and the attack by a black sniper that killed five officers at a march in Dallas. Police videos of these crime scenes have yet to be made public.
The law clarifies that body and dashboard camera recordings cannot be kept confidential as part of an officer's personnel file — a practice that has kept some images from being scrutinized indefinitely.

"If you hold a piece of film for a long period of time, you completely lose the trust of individuals," the governor said. On the other hand, "we've learned if you immediately release a video, sometimes it distorts the entire picture, which is extremely unfair to our law enforcement officials."
 

A Tug-of-War For Power in Turkey, With Journalists in the Middle

By Benjamin Mullin
July 15, 2016
Poynter
As an attempted military coup unfolded Turkey Friday night, reports on social media pointed to a community of journalists under duress as armed invaders attempted to sway reporters through intimidation.
Several Turkish news organizations published reports on Twitter, Facebook and their websites indicating they were being forcibly interrupted as they tried to gather news.
 

Pokemon Go: A Primer for Organizers

By thelearnedfangirl
July 13, 2016
Cultural Pulse
Pokémon Go is a location-based augmented reality mobile game (basically it interacts with Google Maps), that allows you to capture, battle, and train virtual Pokémon that you catch in the real world. You use GPS and your phone camera to locate, snap and catch nearby Pokémon at real-life locations called PokéStops and Pokémon gyms. These are typically located at coffee shops, parks, tourist attractions, places of worship, and more.
Many nonprofits and progressive organizations are looking at ways to incorporate the Pokémon Go craze into their organizing work and mission. Because it’s a location-based app, some are incorporating the real-life meetups into organizing strategy.
 

How the Internet Was Invented

By Ben Tarnoff
July 15, 2016
Guardian
The people who invented the internet came from all over the world. They worked at places as varied as the French government-sponsored computer network Cyclades, England’s National Physical Laboratory, the University of Hawaii and Xerox. But the mothership was the US defense department’s lavishly funded research arm, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arpa) – which later changed its name to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) – and its many contractors. Without Arpa, the internet wouldn’t exist.