The news media and how they cover (or don't cover) News/Politics. Let's argue.

[Mister Mets]

Amy Siskind said she have info from an inside source who lives in AZ and has a direct connection to Sinema. With his permission she started sharing what's behind Sinema's behavior. Her source assumed the media would come knocking and find this story - it is well known in Sinema’s inner circle! But they for whatever reason never did.

It's probably a good thing the media didn't go out of its way to cover gossip.

That specific rumor is based on the idea that Sinema wants to run for President, which is odd for someone who doesn't do interviews with national media, or even alternative media.

It seems to be based on the idea that if a politician does something that partisan writers don't like, the obvious explanation is that there's some kind of ulterior motive, because no one would need a motive to vote the way you want them to, and no one would profit by impressing people like you.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

Here's a disturbing thread regarding how the media is reporting on crime. Including those rash of railroad thefts.

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/sta...531879425?s=20

[Mister Mets]

Here's a disturbing thread regarding how the media is reporting on crime. Including those rash of railroad thefts.

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/sta...531879425?s=20

Should they be interviewing the railway thieves?

The overall crime situation is a bit complicated. Robberies are down in LA, although a big part of that may be that people are home more. Murders are up.

I don't think this story needs to be planted to go viral. People notice when their stuff is stolen, and the videos of people looking through the debris of packages by railway tracks are rather easy to share. It would be worse for the credibility of organizations like the New York Times if they didn't report this story.

I'm also not quite clear on the link between reporting this story and a rise in fascism. It seems to me that if major media outlets suppressed stories that would help sketchier outfits and authoritarians. Or does this guy think standard police are fascists?

[Tendrin]

Should they be interviewing the railway thieves?

The overall crime situation is a bit complicated. Robberies are down in LA, although a big part of that may be that people are home more. Murders are up.

I don't think this story needs to be planted to go viral. People notice when their stuff is stolen, and the videos of people looking through the debris of packages by railway tracks are rather easy to share. It would be worse for the credibility of organizations like the New York Times if they didn't report this story.

I'm also not quite clear on the link between reporting this story and a rise in fascism. It seems to me that if major media outlets suppressed stories that would help sketchier outfits and authoritarians. Or does this guy think standard police are fascists?

Yes, obviously they should be interviewing railroad thieves. That's the take-away you should have here, not that the company slashed 80% of its security work force a little while ago and that the city is in a fight with the police department over a huge budget increase, and recall efforts against progressive DA. These things *definitely* don't provide additional context and we should definitely uncritically accept the fearmongering of police and police sources alone.

https://www.lataco.com/union-pacific...lice-laid-off/

[Johnathan]

Yes, obviously they should be interviewing railroad thieves. That's the take-away you should have here, not that the company slashed 80% of its security work force a little while ago and that the city is in a fight with the police department over a huge budget increase, and recall efforts against progressive DA. These things *definitely* don't provide additional context and we should definitely uncritically accept the fearmongering of police and police sources alone.

https://www.lataco.com/union-pacific...lice-laid-off/

Yeah, the rise in murder rates is much more concerning here in Los Angeles, but even that is only true of a few parts of the city. There is really nothing stopping the police from addressing that now with the massive budget they've had all while it was rising, except, obviously, policing can't really stop murders. Giving more money to the police to address violent crimes is the worst option and no solution.

Instead, bring back the community relations and social programs that were a big part of dealing with tensions in our neighborhoods before the police actively went after their budgets and shut them down.

[Tendrin]

While a local jump in the murder rate is absolutely something to pay attention to, since it typically points towards systemic problems that have to be dealt with, you wouldn't know that the rate of violent crime in the USA remains at historic lows from the media.

[Mister Mets]

While a local jump in the murder rate is absolutely something to pay attention to, since it typically points towards systemic problems that have to be dealt with, you wouldn't know that the rate of violent crime in the USA remains at historic lows from the media.

According to the CDC, the national homicide rate had the largest year to year increase from 2019 to 2020.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/healt...udy/index.html

There seems to be another increase from 2020 to 2021.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/u...rise-2020.html

[Tendrin]

According to the CDC, the national homicide rate had the largest year to year increase from 2019 to 2020.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/healt...udy/index.html

There seems to be another increase from 2020 to 2021.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/u...rise-2020.html

Yes, the murder rate has climbed. We are still at historically low rates of violent crime. Hysteria over a 30% increase in murders isn't warranted when we've seen a 50% drop in *all violent crime* since 1990. A year to year increase is important to note, as are local stats, to create a complete picture. Doing so doesn't service the media very well, however, so it doesn't happen, and instead we continue to get uncritical copaganda.

united-states-crime-rate-statistics-2022-01-24-macrotrends (1).jpg

Here's an article critiquing the reporting on the 'spike' in murders from the Nation.

https://www.thenation.com/article/so...rting-failure/

In September 27, 2021, the FBI released much-anticipated crime data on that most unusual year 2020. The statistics revealed a continued steady decline in major crimes overall—apart from one unfortunate outlier: homicides. Despite homicides being at historic lows, especially when compared to the 1980s and 1990s, the murder rate last year rose by 30 percent compared to the previous year. This rise has left journalists and analysts seeking explanations. Yet the notoriously volatile nature of short-term crime data renders such efforts futile. Ascribing a short-term fluctuation to any particular cause—even a global pandemic—is impossible.

While police and allies have attempted to use the data to tie “bail reform” and racial justice protests to this past year’s rise in murders, those claims are contradicted by the geography of the rise in homicides, which occurred across the country: in red and blue states, in jurisdictions that have seen some measured wins for criminal and civil justice and those that haven’t, in jurisdictions that saw protests against police violence, and those that haven’t—and all despite massive police budgets.

Second, both the Times and NPR pieces are sourced exclusively from police or criminologists with pro-police bias and/or consulting contracts. The Times article, for example, features the perspectives of two chiefs of police, a former police department supervisor, and a consultant to police departments. The NPR podcast relies solely on the opinion of Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist with a history of supporting the s0-called—and much criticized—“Ferguson effect” theory, drawing connections between protests against police brutality and an increase in crime and murder.

This routine source bias in criminal justice reporting must stop. It leads to the false conception that police are the only experts on crime and ignores the critical perspectives such as those of public defenders, social workers, and individuals and communities directly impacted by the criminal legal system. It also presents a singular, skewed interpretation of the news, imbuing coverage with a pro-police bias—an assumption that police solve crime and make the public safer.

Here's Alex Karakatsanis again, laying out some additional facts that should cause one to pause when considering how reports wind up citing only police and police approved sources on this 'railroad theft' garbage.

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/sta...66547244433416

But I digress. This story began with letter from railroad monopoly lobbyist complaining about not enough human caging by "progressive" LA prosecutor. Almost immediately, and we don't yet know how, a pro-cop CBS reporter took a viral video of tracks that corporate/police boosted.

The LAPD will probably get its budget boost, we'll see a few cursory arrests of 'homeless people' and then we'll never hear about this again.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

This twitter post explains what happened to news rooms.

https://twitter.com/SusanRook01/stat...F4lGI8Tp0A8Qtg

[Malvolio]

This comic strip from last week explains it nicely, too:

https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/p...OllIJSOJCknwrI

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

If I had to pick one thing journalists miss in police reporting, it's that cops have tried to surveil, infiltrate, and violently crush every major social, economic, labor, environmental, and racial justice movement since 1900. It's what they spent their budgets on in every city.Because many liberal reporters don't know this history, they absorb "public safety" copaganda and don't see that the police are the main right-wing force that works to prevent the organizing required for all the social change liberals are proud of and say they want more of.

https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/sta...MKJCuDr6g&s=19

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

So why are the media terrible at covering the police

[GindyPosts]

The fact that people firmly believe there is this liberal bias that permeates strongly in the media is deeply ingrained in the social conscious of America makes it very hard to explain why news companies focus on certain stories.

To conservative voters, talking about Trump and the January 6th committee seems like a waste of time (ignoring the hundreds of committees Republicans ran on Benghazi, but that's besides the point) but Trump was and always will be a viable and entertaining source of media for outlets to discuss. Joe Biden is a very dull individual, and given that news outlets, contrary to what people think, do not lean left-wing (unless you watch MSNBC, and even then, they are progressive at best) aren't going to highlight him in nearly the same light due to the lack of fascination.

Speaking of the left-wing, they sure made it important to discuss how dangerous Bernie Sanders was back in 2016 and 2020, even when people were more than willing and eager to vote for something that was different than the usual.

[GindyPosts]

This twitter post explains what happened to news rooms.

https://twitter.com/SusanRook01/stat...F4lGI8Tp0A8Qtg

It doesn't help that newspaper companies are, by and large, no longer locally owned and operated. They're being bought out by massive conglomerates like Gannett and Nexstar Publishing, who don't really have that much of an interest in investigative journalism and are more focused on what sells ad revenue.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

It’s wild to see the NYT say this when they were one of the main media outlets responsible for fueling this crime hysteria, lying about bail reform, and not accepting Op-eds from people like myself who actively tried to debunk the fearmongering. I truly have to laugh

https://twitter.com/msolurin/status/...-DOYuX2dXLE4nw