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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
Nov 18
THREAD. One of the moments that changed my career was my first day as a public defender in D.C.'s juvenile court. When I walked into the courtroom, which is closed to the public, all the little children were fully shackled in metal chains on their wrists, waists, and feet.
I saw 9-year-olds, 11-year-olds, children with intellectual disabilities, children who had suffered profound abuse--all shackled for hours. But what shocked me most: no one had objected in years. The government officials had become desensitized to everyday brutality.
I asked the judge what she would have done if she came home from a concert and found that the babysitter had shackled her children to a table for hours. She'd probably prosecute the babysitter for child cruelty. Indiscriminate child-shackling is clearly unconstitutional.
Read 6 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Oct 29
THREAD. Something important is happening in U.S. media that I think is getting insufficient attention, and the controversy around the Los Angeles Times refusing to endorse Kamala Harris amidst her support of an ongoing genocide gets at it.
As background, a lot of uproar ensued in mainstream media circles after @nikasoonshiong’s thread stated that she supported the decision of the paper owned by her father to refuse to endorse Harris and adding that, for her, genocide is a red line:
The mainstream media is, absurdly, attempting to equate WaPo’s refusal to endorse Harris with LA Times, even though they were done for different reasons. Subscriber numbers show normal people get that, with WaPo losing far more readers. Reasons matter:
Read 22 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Oct 23
Thread. Today’s front page in the New York Times is a good lesson in two of the most important tactics in propaganda.
First, notice the euphemism “pragmatism.” The idea that people who support enormous injustice and terrible policies are “pragmatic” is one of the most subtly ideological and dangerous characteristics of corporate news. This trope is used for decades. House correspondent Kamala Harris is not offering sweeping change, even as voters express dissatisfaction about the direction of the country. She’s an institutionalist who wants to preserve democratic ideals, and an incrementalist who believes progress takes time. That means her pragmatic approach could be frustrating to some supporters.
People become unable to distinguish between someone who supports lofty values but who is wisely playing 4D chess by pretending not to support them for years versus someone who actually doesn’t support, say, universal health care, social security, peace, economic equality, etc
Read 13 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Oct 17
THREAD. Something very weird is going on at ProPublica. It's hard to tell whether a few well-meaning people are getting lost or whether there is a Copaganda sleeper cell inside the non-profit newsroom.
First, ProPublica is a public charity supposedly dedicated to "Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest." But in recent years, its reporters have peddled some of the most nefarious copaganda: fearmongering about not enough spending on prosecution supposedly causing crime.
In 2022, ProPublica journalist Alec MacGillis published one of the most shoddy articles of the post-George Floyd, early pandemic era. He claimed "the cause" of "the" violent crime "wave" were court backlogs. I explained how incoherent/dangerous this was: equalityalec.substack.com/p/when-good-jo…
Read 13 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Sep 23
A problem in our society is that people fail to draw inferences from facts. For example, it requires depravity to do what the Democratic Michigan Attorney General just did—make up a lie for the purpose of deceiving ordinary people on one of the most important topics of our time.
But the way the lie is reported and discussed by many people is not a serious effort to grapple with what it means for a person to intentionally try to distort other people’s experience of our world in support of violence and inequality.
A rule of thumb is to think hard about what kind of person thinks to themselves: I’m going to use my access to mass media to lie right now. And think about what kinds of reasons they have for the lie and who benefits—and tragically, whose lives are on the line because of it.
Read 5 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Sep 16
THREAD. One persistent form of propaganda is the refusal of corporate media to report critical context about judges when it reports on legal cases. Today's reporting on the TikTok case is a good example.
The entire New York Times article on the TikTok case is based on the supposed skepticism of two federal judges to TikTok's arguments, but the paper omits they are two of the most right-wing judges in the appellate judiciary, appointed by Trump and Reagan. nytimes.com/2024/09/16/tec…
The paper hides the political backgrounds and prior controversial positions and rulings of the two judges. It's as if "the law" is something neutral, that it doesn't matter who the judges are or who appoints them, that this is not a space where power is contested, etc.
Read 5 tweets

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