Comforts th’ comfortable; afflicts th’ afflicted.

“It may seem like humorless scolding, but the consequences of this type of demonization are real. A key feature of these stories—as seen in follow-up stories about the Taco Bell break-in by The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Fox 5 Atlanta, and several others—is mug shots that spread to hundreds of websites complete with the arrestee’s name. As I’ve reported elsewhere, this process of ‘mugshot shaming’ ruins lives and stains one’s online reputation for decades to come. At the other end of these clickbait stories is a real human being, and to the extent that these are ‘news,’ they are only so because the police see to it that they are.” —Adam H. Johnson