If members of the press mix with the rioters they risk getting treated like rioters.
The press can be obnoxious. Remember how they killed Princess Diana with their reckless pursuit?
With big newsworthy events they act like cockroaches, where their own behavior tries to drive the event rather than report on it.
A lifetime ago I was an advisor in Vietnam, and in Saigon at the cease fire where thousands of media reporters, cameramen, etc. hadcongregated, pushing security to get in our faces trying to get first coverage, chasing anything THEY thought was important. Once they poured onto the flight line, endangering themselves and others. I had to call for the CQ to shoo them off, they resisted and the CQ resorted to clubs to make their point, smashing cameras and equipment. Apparently, nothing infuriates the media more than seeing their fellow media members being manhandled, so they turned their attention to police brutality rather than us. It was like a comedy routine watching cameramen trying to take pictures and videos of one another being driven back with brute force. Like one being physically attacked while others rushed closer to capture it on video.
