[mmckelvy]

I live in West Los Angeles and have been by this encampment, as well as many others throughout West LA. The article portrays the encampment as some sort of "community" where people who have made a few bad decisions or caught a few bad breaks have come to "get back on their feet".

The reality is this encampment, like many others, is pretty close to hell on earth. It's a site of abject misery, squalor, and violence. People regularly get stabbed, beaten, and raped there. The people in the camp set fires, scream wildly at all hours of the day and night, fight with the fire department, consume hard drugs openly (i.e. meth and fentanyl), and destroy the surrounding environment with an astounding amount of trash and human waste. The park they occupy as well as the nearby library are now unusable by the general public.

[quacked]

The response to these types of articles always reminds me of that video about the purported ex-KGB agent talking about "demoralization"--even when shown "facts" in front of their very eyes, the demoralized are unwilling to believe.

An example of similar journalism--here's a cover story from the Madison, WI local paper "painting a picture" of the "troubled" life of a "local activist" after his arrest went semi-viral a few years ago: https://isthmus.com/news/cover-story/in-his-name/

For some reason, "empathy for the unfortunate" has turned into "a complete inability to prescribe moral judgements against anyone who meets a certain set of criteria".