Looters are bad people taking advantage of a horribly vulnerable opinion IMO. What they're doing is shitty, and I don't think any sensible person is saying "Well, this is excusable." Because frankly, setting CVS on fire isn't excusable. But please God, don't put all the protestors in the same camp as looters and arsonists.

Big media is a business. CNN, FOX, MSNBC they will put the things on the news that will get your attention. Horrible people setting an innocent CVS on fire? Yeah, hell, I'll tune into that. Thousands of people protesting peacefully? Nahhh... kinda boring, I think I'll flip on another channel and see if they have any of that super extra divisive flavor of news.

The perfect example of this to me is Michael Brown vs. Eric Garner and how much more media attention Brown got. Instead of focusing on the core issue (police brutality) they took the more divisive case where there was a LOT of grey area and milked the hell out of that case until half the country was on Brown's side and half the country was on Wilson's side.

The Eric Garner case was clear-cut. Police brutality. Almost no grey area. But the police got off free. Now, a news station that was actually about yknow: ethics and actual journalism (super boring stuff) then maybe we could actually have an honest conversation about systemic police brutality and violence in this country.

But nahhh, instead we'll take the ratings-dynamite that is the Michael Brown case. Now obviously, Garner got some serious media attention but I would venture to say it wasn't half as much as Brown got.

I'm not a tinfoil crazy "THE MEDIA IS CONTROLLING OUR MINDSSSSS MAN" but I understand it is a business. They need to make money, and the best way to do that is to keep viewers tuned in.

TL;DR: The media wants ratings. They're going to show you shocking things to keep you tuned in, if that means sacrificing journalism for shock value... so be it.