Terminology-when is a protester called a thug, a terrorist, or a patriot in the media

Terminology-when is a protester called a thug, a terrorist, or a patriot in the media
Terminology-when is a protester called a thug, a terrorist, or a patriot in the media

Terminology-when is a protester called a thug, a terrorist, or a patriot in the media

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When Washington Post reporter Janell Ross woke up Sunday morning and started reading about the situation in Oregon, she was struck by the language used-or not used-in those stories to describe the men occupying the federal building and surrounding land. Her column, “Why aren’t we calling the Oregon occupiers ‘terrorists’?” looks at a series of examples, from the mass shootings in San Bernadino and Charleston, SC to the protests in Ferguson, Baltimore and Chicago, and wonders why “some Americans are presumed guilty and violence-prone while others are assumed to be principled and peaceable unless and until provoked-even when actually armed” (Flickr/Gage Skidmore)