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Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
@equalityAlec
Dec 12, 2021 • 16 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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."
It's weird, but both those article source lists look eerily similar to what the New York Times published!
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?

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More from @equalityAlec

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Apr 24
THREAD. I have a chapter about this person in my Copaganda book. He’s considered one of the leading lights among Democratic Party officials. I am sort of open to the idea that we should be a country with a national ID card system and a rule that you're expected to have your papers on you at all times in case your citizenship is challenged. But if that's what conservatives want, we need to create the card.
At a time of rising authoritarianism, he normalizes the idea of a society where everyone can be questioned and stopped at any time. I cannot begin to describe how dangerous this is.
Too much abhorrent/ignorant to cover on social media, but it's completely ignorant of what is being done with digital IDs in authoritarian India, e.g., and makes assumptions about immigration, "citizenship," and the value of human life that should horrify people of good will.
Read 6 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Apr 21
THREAD. This is one of the more remarkable stories I have seen in my time studying state violence and working in law. But it's also an exercise in propaganda. And it's unbelievable how terrible the U.S. media coverage is. One thing in particular is important to see. headling: Bukele proposes deal that would free deported venezueans.
Background: this follows up on U.S. kidnapping people, rushing them onto planes as courts tried to stop it, and then defying court orders, with White House taunting courts and elected officials about how a person they agree was wrongly trafficked will never be coming back.
The kidnapping people off the street and then sending them to a prison (for life?) in a foreign country with no due process and without any law permitting indefinite detention--and then defying court orders--would be enough to end the U.S. legal system as we know it.
Read 18 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Apr 17
THREAD. As authoritarianism rises, people still don't know the story of what Democrats and news outlets did after the fake shoplifting epidemic: created one of the most alarming expansions of surveillance in modern times. The details of what Democrats + cops did will shock you.
First, as I explain in my new book Copaganda, everyone now acknowledges the "retail theft" and "shoplifting" epidemic was fake. Shoplifting was not up--it was **down.** And property crime at historic lows. It was entirely a fabrication. But why?
The companies had their own reasons--distracting from the real reasons they were closing stories, lobbying for various crackdowns on online commerce, and socializing the costs of security to the public so they could cut costs. But the real story is the police.
Read 8 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Mar 30
Copaganda 101: the New York Times suggests without evidence (and contrary to actual polling evidence) that “left-leaning views” on public safety “have become less popular.” It’s a neat sleight of hand where the news doesn’t actually tell us what those mystery positions are. While many of his progressive rivals in the race have adopted more centrist positions on certain issues like policing and public safety, Mr. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, continues to embrace left-leaning views that have become less popular with voters in New York.
Notice also the paper’s description of violent police surveillance and repression as “centrist positions.”
I have a chapter in my Copaganda book about the sometimes subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) playbook the New York Times uses against candidates who would attempt to curb the size, power, and profit of police.
Read 5 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Feb 12
THREAD. Last year, we filed landmark lawsuits on behalf of children in Michigan alleging a conspiracy between sheriffs + private equity-owned companies to end family jail visits for millions of kids across the U.S. as part of a scheme to make more $$ on phone/video calls.
Several days ago, a second Michigan sheriff has announced that this ban on visits is wrong and destructive, and that they will be ending it. Hundreds of sheriffs are still doing this--do you know what's going on in your community? facebook.com/SheriffAlyshia…
You can watch a video from NBC News explaining what's going on across the country:
Read 5 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Feb 10
THREAD. Every day I get to work with amazing people from all walks of life who are dedicating their lives to fighting government repression and corporate predation. They do it strategically and relentlessly. The incompetence and grifting of political elites makes a mockery of it.
For years, Jeffries and leading Democrats pushed an agenda of mass economic plunder, health insurance profiteering, prisons, militarism, genocide, identity politics, jingoism, and ecological ruin. It's why he can't say anything meaningful with credibility in this fascist moment.
The crisis is as acute as it has been in my lifetime. People of goodwill and influence must jettison leaders like this from public life. We need to organize and demand people who can put forward a simple, popular plan of widespread human flourishing and resistance to cruelty.
Read 8 tweets

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