Tim Pool

About
is an award winning American journalist from Chicago, Illinois. His 21-hour marathon reporting earned him fame during the Occupy Wall Street protests.

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Timcast4004 karma

Yes I have.

Fusion told me and many other staff to "side with the audience." Which they clarified as young people being liberal or left leaning so that's the angle we take regardless of the facts. It was not a fun time.

Most companies don't force journalists to be biased they just hire biased journalists in the first place.

Timcast3110 karma

welcome to news in 2017. Its a race to the bottom.

Timcast1792 karma

Ooooh yea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJyC3to8ODA

EDIT: Ok here goes.. here is the full story.

While covering the NoNato protests in Chicago I got word that the apartment I was staying at in Chicago had been raided. My crew was 4 others. Our driver decided they would head to the apt to see what was up and sure enough the door was open and several officers were outside. He decided to head back to us without confronting police.

After the protests started dying down I called the national lawyers guild for advice. They told me that unless we directly interact with cops they can't help us. Funny thing, about 15 minutes later as we drove we got surrounded by maybe a dozen police vehicles, some all black and tinted windows. They approached us with guns drawn and demanded they see our "fucking hands."

Here's the funny thing.

Because we had been planning on how to deal with the earlier police raid our adrenaline was high. When the cars surrounded us one crew member yells

"ITS HAPPENING!"

They approached the vehicle pulled us out and searched everything. They asked me who I was, where I was from, what was I doing, why was I doing it, and more. They took our credit card numbers, passport information, etc.

After about ten minutes a shorter cops walks over and waves his hand at me. A cop then uncuffs me and the shorter cops says "youre vehicle matched a description" and tells us we are free to go.

This is when we called the news and NLG.

I decided that because of the raid and then the detainment only me and one other person with a large following would be allowed to re enter the apartment and we would livestream everything. Any perishable items would be discarded, vitamins, pills anything edible would be trashed.

As we were leaving another person who had been sharing the apartment with us arrived and asked for a ride. I said it would be fine as long as he followed my rules. This person became slightly agitated and stated they needed to grab something from inside the apartment. I refused, "you enter the apartment thats fine, but you wont be riding with us." So he decides to just get in the car and stay quiet.

As we were leaving, heading to safe place to sleep, I got a text that the police had been talking about us on the radio scanner. This text came from someone we all trusted very much. I couldnt believe it though... seriously? Cops are actually targeting us?

I get another text "THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU ON THE SCANNER STOP GIVING INTEL"

I aimed my livestream down so you couldnt see where we were heading.

We got to a safe place on the southside of Chicago and went to sleep. Everything seemed fine.

The next day as we laughed about it, the one guy who tried to get something from inside laughed and said

"Isn't it weird they[person who owned apartment] wanted me to bring adderall in the car?"

I basically shat a brick at that point... Apparently the person who lived in the apartment texted this guy asking him to grab drugs from inside and bring them with into our car.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I said

He responded "Yea they asked me to bring adderall into the car"

To which I said "Why the fuck would they want you to take their drugs from their apartment? If we got pulled over and had that bottled we'd all be locked up right now."

We heard a rumor that the person who lived there recently started dating a cop. I don't know if they actually tried pulling some bullshit on us, but I can say that it was possible. If it was true, I credit my planning for keeping me and my crew safe.

Thanks for reading!

Timcast1570 karma

Money and Politics, but usually money.

An article about violent trump supporters will get waaay more shares than a balanced piece about violence on both sides.

EDIT: i suck at speling

Timcast1235 karma

I stayed away form the chanting group, I moved as far to the right/back as possible.

I waved over the Lt. and said "I just want to let you know I'm press" I informed the police around me everytime I would move to open my bag or swap cameras.

I was trying to be as unobtrusive as possibly, kept calm, kept my mouth shut.

Timcast1187 karma

Ehhhh I dont like it. John Oliver has done some good content but also some really bad and misleading content. They try to get away with misleading people by saying "Im not a journalist"

Yea great... thanks for making the world shittier.

People actually believe that Sarah Palin said "I can see Russia from my house"

I get it, comedy is great and we joke about politics. It is what it is.

Timcast945 karma

I will take at least one shower.

Timcast932 karma

There is no money. Companies are struggling and firing left and right. The companies that are doing well learned that hyperpartisan content shares better than real news.

Then you get "ad rights" purchasing, basically companies buying traffic to claim they get more viewership than they do.

Timcast904 karma

I have friends who are high profile feminists and friends who are high profile Trump supporters. What makes me unbiased (for the most part, no one is perfect) is that I have both sides talking to me calmly because we are friends.

Most people on one side of the isle only hear anger, attacks, and insults. You can't expect people to get along when they dont want to.

As for media, they play sides on purpose, people like having their biases confirmed and companies can monetize that.

Timcast865 karma

I would.

This was one of the first times an officer talked to people being arrested. This is a situation where a large organized black bloc is destroying cars, windows, spray painting everywhere. The police decided to hold the whole group and sort it out later.

The idea of mass arrest sucks, but when people form a black bloc specifically to avoid the police's ability to target those causing destruction the only thing they can do is wrap up everyone and sort it later.