This assignment also made me lose a lot of respect for my fellow journalists. Don't let 'em kid ya, folks — they're here to see a FIGHT! That's why we were sent here: to sniff out the BLOOD, as we go running willy-nilly from one sign of trouble to the next like a bunch of jackals. With tens of thousands of reporters milling about in the streets there'd BETTER be a fucking riot. Our bosses want their money's worth!

And when we don't see any trouble we CAUSE it by asking obnoxious questions and sticking cameras and microphones in people's faces; we're constantly blurring the "battle lines" between the cops and the protesters, knowingly agitating an already volatile situation by GETTING IN THE GODDAMNED WAY.

That's why I want to vomit when I read about some boss from CNN demanding an apology from the LAPD due to some tech getting kicked in the stomach in the middle of a melee; or when one of these martyrs-for-the-cause-of-Truth goes on TV showing off their rubber bullet wounds, claiming the cops were DELIBERATELY shooting at the press. Gee, do ya think?

Hey, weren't you the one who was standing in the middle of a bunch of assholes who were giving the cops the finger and throwing bottles at them? And what did you THINK would happen once all hell broke lose? Were you expecting a pillow fight? Did you expect the rubber bullets to somehow magically shoot AROUND you once the cops opened fire?

Maybe, just maybe you DESERVED to be shot by a rubber bullet, ya MORON!