You know what's a really great way for those in power to ensure their subjects don't criticize the illegal and immoral suppression of those opposing them?

Make sure they don't know about it in the first place!

Permit me to translate this into reality:

All media who are attending the area, please keep a distance and stay out of police operations...

All media who are attending the area, please don't actually attend the area...

...for your safety.

...for our safety.

Anyone found within areas undergoing enforcement may be subject to arrest.

Anyone found within areas where actual news is occurring will be arrested at our whim.

There will be a media availability later today at 474 Elgin Street.

We will tell you what to report later today at 474 Elgin Street.

Journalism is hard.

Stenography is easy!

Apparently the Ottawa police must still all have flip phones, dial-up modems, and are wondering why their Palm Pilots aren't updating any more because we're all journalists now and the real news will escape their quarantine as easily as Covid did.

Still, controlling (and thereby suppressing) the media outlets with the widest reach and biggest audiences is a direct attack on the notion of the rulers being held accountable by the ruled.

They are getting ready to engage in a violent atrocity: the use of armed forces, in service to a ruling elite, to physically put down a genuine workers' uprising.

DEMONSTRATORS

You must leave

They are violently breaking up a demonstration.

Let that sink in.

Sadly, Glenn Greenwald's take is probably right.

Given that the target of the police in this case have the Wrong Ideology, many journalists will be not angry but grateful.

Will it work? Will the public acquiesce to this power grab, side with the authoritarians, and buy the "extremist" slur?

Given the tenor of many – although not all – of the comments, I'm not optimistic that it won't.