THREAD. I noticed something fascinating: many of the reporters concocting the new hysteria over "retail theft" are using the *exact same* words and patterns in each story. It's pretty wild. Let's take a look:
Let's use today's dangerous @chicagotribune article as an example. First thing to notice: who does the newspaper choose to use as sources? Here they are in chronological order: chicagotribune.com/business/ct-bi…
1. CEO of local retail lobby 2. National Retail Federation 3. Police 4. CEO of state retail lobby (5 paras!) 5. CEO of World Business Chicago 6. Pres. of restaurant lobby 7. CEO of Illnois Hotel lobby (7 paras!) 8. New hotel CEO (6 paras!) 9. CEO from earlier (7 more paras!)
Does this look familiar? Check out the sources in the very similar recent @AP article about "brazen" San Francisco "retail theft."
I cannot stress this enough: when you see articles like this, ask yourself: Why is this news? How did it get to the reporters? What is the goal of the article? How did they choose which voices to quote and which to ignore? Who benefits?
Next, did you notice that this article continues the pattern of the same exact words and phrases as other similar recent articles across outlets?
"brazen"
"organized crime"
"flash mob"
"smash and grab."
How is this happening?
One thing that many casual news readers don't know is that articles, and the specific words used in them, are often carefully crafted by expensive corporate marketing consultants. It's something wealthy business groups pay a lot of money for.
There is a big marketing industry for corporations and cops that teaches them to use the same words and phrases when they pitch journalists. It's not a coincidence that different journalists are all using same words, and those words were carefully chosen by wealthy people.
This is intentional, and it subtly changes the way we think. For example, the slick phrase "smash and grab" is pure marketing. It's vague, scary, and hard to fact check. Such theft is likely close to 0% of retail thefts, but it's all we're talking about. What does it even mean?
The result of all of this is a public massively distracted from far more important issues. Did you know that these same corporations engage in wage theft every day that dwarf all other property crime combined? Read this whole thread:
We must help each other become more critical consumers of the news, and we must hold journalists accountable for the role they are playing in scaring the public into deeply destructive human caging policies that crush poor people.
UPDATE: it’s especially interesting to compare the breathless Chicago tribune reporting with actual facts:
I hope the reporter @RobertChannick will publicly explain how he got this story idea. Who came to you? What was the pitch? Why did you decide it was “news,” and how did you decide on the sources you chose? It’s important to have these discussions publicly.
If you want more depth, I’ve written a longer piece about the massive and profitable bureaucracy behind these narratives, using hundreds of examples. yalelawjournal.org/forum/the-puni…
UPDATE: I'm wondering why @RobertChannick didn't mention same retail sources have ongoing federal lobbying campaign re:"brazen" theft. Many poor people will be caged b/c of the hysteria reporters are stoking, all collateral damage for a corporate campaign?
The events described in this article are the kinds of things people experience under fascism. The Texas Attorney General's conduct reflects a complete breakdown in democratic institutions.
The failure of the Department of Justice and the judiciary to prevent authoritarian abuse like this should be an alarming moment for the legal profession. It's the kind of thing that should be front-page news in every paper and emergency conversations in every law class.
Federal "law enforcement" officials are behaving as if this is not an urgent situation. Instead of devoting resources to investigating illegal authoritarian abuse, federal resources in the state are mostly doubling down to help Texas officials fearmonger about the border.
THREAD. The Democratic Party platform presents such a profound crisis if we have any hope of avoiding fascism.
Kamala Harris and other Democrats would essentially only need to say that they will condition aid to Israel on compliance with international law (i.e. follow existing U.S. law on weapons). The refusal to say something so simple presents a point of no return, for a few reasons.
Here is an image of everywhere bombed in Gaza, mostly with U.S. bombs. 100,000s have been killed by conservative estimates in medical journals. The entire infrastructure (schools, hospitals, water, history, etc) destroyed, and many thousands kidnapped, raped, tortured, maimed.
THREAD. A few years ago, we were worried about the hidden epidemic of prosecutor misconduct. Why do so many prosecutors break the law? Why does nothing happen to them? Why does it stay secret? So, we tried to do something. What we found was more shocking than we imagined.
We worked with a group of the country's leading law professors to file ethics complaints against prosecutors in cases where either judges or their own prosecutor offices had already found them to have broken the law. We filed FIFTY of these complaints in New York alone.
A prosecutor breaking the law in a criminal prosecution--which can result in wrongful incarceration and family separation for years--is among the most serious violation of the code of ethics to which lawyers are bound. Ethics boards can discipline them to protect people.
I’m not sure I’ve seen anything more depraved and dishonest in my tracking of the New York Times. In its article about Netanyahu’s speech, it not only fails to report that Netanyahu flagrantly lied, but it repeats the lie with no acknowledgment Israeli media has proven it false.
You can read more about some of the most astonishing lies, and the grotesque applause for them here. But how is the reaction of a *newspaper* simply repeat the lie. It's some of the most shameful complicity in genocide imaginable, and yet normal.
Instead, one of the most fascist moments in U.S. political history--adoring applause and chants for obvious, knowable lies in support of genocide--is portrayed as "forceful" without any correction of the lies. It's a breathtaking low point for @anniekarni and @SangerNYT
In a landmark federal court victory yesterday, we won our 1st Amendment lawsuit against New York judges and officials concerning secretive ethics proceedings against prosecutors. In most cases no one knows why the state does nothing when DAs break the law. Much more to come...
This work--to shed light on how officials in the punishment bureaucracy, from police to prison guards to prosecutors to probation officers to judges, evade accountability at every level--is more and more vital in times of rising authoritarianism.
The work that @CivRightsCorps and a number of amazing law professors across the U.S. are doing to enforce basic norms of accountability and transparency is more vital than ever. You can read more at accountabilityny.org
THREAD. One of the things I explore in my new study of the propaganda surrounding police body cameras in the U.S. media and by Democratic politicians are its similarities to both international development propaganda and colonial counterinsurgency strategy.
As James Ferguson has shown in one of the seminal studies of the issue, decades of discourse about “reforming” the bureaucracy of international development follows a similar pattern.
Observers acknowledge the continuous failures of international government and non-profit aid to end poverty, make the world meaningfully more equal, or prevent ecological catastrophe.