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The New York Times Spreads Misinformation Again

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The New York Times Spreads Misinformation Again

And it's the same writer, over and over

Alec Karakatsanis
Jun 26, 2023
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The New York Times Spreads Misinformation Again

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I’ve been taking a summer break from writing new posts because I’ve been asked to turn my newsletter posts into a book on Copaganda. As with my last book, my plan is to donate all royalties to a community-based organization that fights against police violence, and to have free copies available to all teachers and to all high school, college, and graduate students who want them. We will also have free copies available to all people who want one and who are confined in jails and prisons, and to folks organizing in their community against police violence.

But I needed to send a post today because, once again, the New York Times has allowed one of its most notorious pro-police writers to publish yet another irresponsible article emailed to millions of paid subscribers in the NYT’s flagship “The Morning” newsletter.

Protesting for Civil Rights Causes MURDER and the Only Solution Is More Cops

Today’s article is a smorgasboard of copaganda, but I want to focus on two recurring themes. First, the author yet again baselessly claims that the George Floyd protests for racial justice and civil rights caused more murders. Second, the author yet again baselessly claims that more cops reduces violence. Each of these outrageous claims are supported by vague, anonymous reference to “experts, ” who are, again, portrayed as operating with some kind of consensus.

If you haven’t read it yet, this would be a good time for you to read my prior essay that dissects much of this unethical misinformation by this same reporter over the last several years, as well as all of the tactics used in this article:

How the New York Times Uses "Experts"

Alec Karakatsanis
·
July 13, 2022
How the New York Times Uses "Experts"

Journalists often need to explain complex concepts. One way that reporters and editors do this is by using “experts” to offer important context. There’s nothing wrong with using experts to help explain things. There are many issues in the world that matter for our lives, and we can’t possibly have the time or ability to master them all ourselves. And …

Read full story

Here are some of today’s excerpts. You’ll notice that they are essentially identical to the practices criticized in the past—almost a carbon copy:

The declines are a sign that at least two of the issues that likely contributed to the murder spike — Covid and the fallout from George Floyd’s murder — are receding. As much of life has returned to normal after a highly unusual 2020, the crime trends have started to shift back, too.
The second explanation: More time has passed since Floyd’s death at the hands of the police in 2020 strained relations between law enforcement and their communities.
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How does this strain contribute to crime? After high-profile killings, some officers pull back from proactive practices that keep people safe. The public becomes more reluctant to work with the police. And with less confidence in the justice system, some Americans resort instead to violence to resolve conflicts.

These patterns have happened before. Between 2014 and 2016, murders also increased after widely publicized police killings of Black men in Ferguson, Mo.; Baltimore; and elsewhere. This year, Memphis is among a minority of big cities where murders have increased — and Memphis is also where officers were charged in the beating and killi
The declines are a sign that at least two of the issues that likely contributed to the murder spike — Covid and the fallout from George Floyd’s murder — are receding. As much of life has returned to normal after a highly unusual 2020, the crime trends have started to shift back, too.

These arguments have been thoroughly debunked in every respect. But at the very least, they are highly controversial claims that many “experts” dispute. But not so for German Lopez and the New York Times—for them, the wide range of experts from economics, public health, history, anthropology, sociology, and law who have offered very different explanations and analyses are erased. After I called attention to this misinformation two years ago, the excellent non-profit Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) published a lengthy taketown. I and others have continued to highlight the ethical implications of this coverage for the New York Times, but also for the public’s trust in the media generally.

Indeed, something is different about today’s article. At the end of the article, for the small percentage of people who read the whole thing, there is a remarkable paragraph that essentially confirms that the rest of the article is speculation. Contrast the author’s earlier use of the term “likely” with what the article says about the theories not being “proven”:

What we don’t know

Experts caution that these three explanations are not proven. And it is possible that the rest of the year will be more violent than the first half. “I do think it’s a little premature to be making any strong conclusions about what it all means just yet,” Jeff Asher, a crime analyst who tracks the big-city murder data, told me.

The lack of certainty is typical in discussions about crime. Starting in the 1990s, crime rates plummeted. Yet decades later, after much scholarship, no consensus has emerged for why violence subsided. Crime is an incredibly complicated topic, involving personal disputes, the economy, social services, the political system and more. A few decades, much less a couple of years, is typically too little time to explain a trend definitively.

Still, we do know that murders in big cities have declined since last year. As a result of that decrease,

The fact that the paper needed to insert the qualifications at the end but that editors still permitted the author to assert above that his speculation was “likely” is devastating to the paper’s credibility.

When this author used to work at Vox, he wrote similar pro-police nonsense, so I had a long conversation with him hoping to get him to see the need for more objectivity and critical thinking. It was very weird. He was unable to support basic, prominent assertions that he made in published articles, but was also unwilling to change. He merely referred me to a number of biased, cherry-picked studies that he and I both knew had been themselves debunked and that did not even, on their face, support the arguments he was making about needing more police. It was during that conversation I realized I was not dealing with a good faith actor seeking rigorous truth who was just misinformed, but an idealogue who, because his ideology is so thoroughly mainstream, has trouble even seeing his own biases. The question is: why does the New York Times allow him to continue reprinting essentially the same article every few months for years? The possible answers to that question are not heartening for the future of U.S. corporate media.

Two Other Observations:

I want to highlight how today’s misinformation plays into two other important themes that I’ve discussed. First, in The Volume of News, I explained that how, when, where, and how many times news outlets cover certain stories and say certain things is a huge element of propaganda. In addition to the volume of ordinary coverage, I specifically had in mind things not traditionally thought of as relevant, such as which stories outlets choose for push alerts to phones, which stories are featured on social media, and which stories are marketed to paying email subscribers. Read that piece here:

The Volume of News

The Volume of News

Alec Karakatsanis
·
Jan 9
Read full story

Also, I have highlighted an anti-intellectual trend at the NYT in which the elite newspaper permits a small range of ideologically homogenous writers to pontificate on a wide range of the most important issues in our society.

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The New York Times Spreads Misinformation Again

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The New York Times Spreads Misinformation Again

equalityalec.substack.com
Scott
Jun 26Liked by Alec Karakatsanis

Talking to copbrained people has been a practice in futility for me. The notion that police aren't effective community safety is such an abstract idea to them. I get it, cops have been propped up in our society as the arbiter of good and evil, no matter how demonstrably untrue that is, that it's very hard for people that maybe have never interacted with them to see them any different. Your work is a fantastic dive into how our minds have been gaslit to see LE as a societal good, while their unwarranted violence is recorded so thoroughly. Thank you! Can't wait to read the book version.

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Cate
Jun 26Liked by Alec Karakatsanis

I’m thrilled to hear you’re writing a copaganda book!

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