THREAD. A new scandal is brewing at the New York Times. I try my best below to document the paper's corporate and police union copaganda, and to share actual evidence and research that the NYT ignores. The stakes are huge.
Last year, I wrote about a NYT writer who didn't disclose he had worked for CIA, Palantir, and police or that he currently ran a consulting company that relies on "law enforcement" contracts. It was a shocking, unethical episode.
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1442548020118097921
Well, today, NYT had different reporter write basically same story and send it to entire NYT email list. Who was his main data source? **The same CIA/Palantir/Police analyst.** Again, the NYT calls that guy a "crime analyst" without reporting any of his conflicts of interest.
Today's piece is, in many ways, worse. It is unethical faux-science suggesting that more police will make us safer. This is contrary to the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence, but you wouldn't know that from NYT. But it gets even more insidious. nytimes.com/2022/01/18/bri…
I've done a meta thread with relevant scientific papers and essays to explain why articles like this about "more cops mean more safety" are asking all of the wrong questions and misleading you about even the silly questions they are asking.
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1476221720621166601
While premise of today's article is nonsense, I want to make a few points. First, there is little new reporting. This is essentially same talking points NYT published last year. When looking at media, we ask: who benefits from repeatedly making this news?
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1469770320265420806
Second, most of the main factual claims in the article have no citation. They are highly controversial (in many cases disproven) opinions published in the paper of record without telling readers they are even contested! Ask why the reporter doesn't want us to even know that.
Third, the paper cites undisclosed "experts" for the idea that there are only "three" possible explanations for rising murders. What? Which experts? Why isn't the real, big issue mentioned:
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1436053960608059396
Fourth, there are two main experts offered to give vague support for the article's main theses: that changes in policing caused murder and that the solutions are more punishment.
The first source is a guy who pro-police journalists always seem to quote for the James Comey "Ferguson Effect" idea, in articles that don't offer any evidence, just his "opinion." NPR used same guy for same reason. His opinion here is impossibly vague.
https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1442868687791280130
The "Ferguson effect" suggesting that reaction by police and public to civil rights protests somehow increases crime is like climate science denial. It was laughed at when Comey suggested it, and now it's offered as fancy pseudo-science in the New York Times.
The second source asserts he is "as much a reformer as anybody," but then asserts (with no evidence) that “there’s no getting around" that the short term solution is more punishment. The *actual science* says exact opposite, but NYT doesn't tell you that.
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1476221739067654152
One of the most subtle forms of propaganda is the choice of who counts and an expert. Why did NYT quote these experts but not the array of scientists who have the opposite view: that more police makes us less safe compared to reducing inequality and other investments?
Another form of propaganda is the intentional decision to portray some kind of "expert consensus" by ignoring all the experts who disagree. One of most subtle ways to mislead readers is to say "experts say" but then only report one side of a hotly contested expert debate.
Fifth, though all credible criminologists know it's irresponsible to speculate on causes of short term fluctuations in crime, NYT attempts to explain estimated murder trends and even suggests the "pandemic" likely isn't responsible but "changes in policing" are. Wild speculation.
Sixth, only other support offered for pro-police union idea that we need more police to make us safer is a link to the same reporter's prior opinion piece in Vox. I demolished those ideas and even spoke to him. He had *no answer* to any of my arguments. currentaffairs.org/2020/08/why-cr…
It is difficult to capture how bleak it is for the leading "news" source in the country, at a time of rising fascism, to be pushing faux-science suggesting the US needs even MORE spending on militarized police, surveillance, and punishment. It will have historic consequences.
Setting aside the evidence in my thread above that police cause more crime than they prevent and instead use their budgets to brutally enforce inequality, every other comparable country in the world manages to have lower violence with less punishment. All that missing in NYT.
This is, unfortunately, part of a long pattern of similar unethical, dangerous reporting in the NYT. Below are a few of the many threads I've done recently collecting some of these examples. At a time of rising authoritarian movements, we cannot let this keep happening.
UPDATE: People are pointing out some incredible things that I didn't include in the original thread, so I need to add some of the most shocking parts of this *news* article. I simply cannot believe the following quotes made it into a *news* section in a paper that has editors:
"The fallout from the 2020 racial justice protests and riots COULD HAVE contributed to the murder spike. Police officers, scared of being caught in the next viral video, MAY have pulled back on proactive anti-violence practices." No evidence or citation!
"More of the public lost confidence in the police, POSSIBLY reducing the kind of cooperation needed to prevent murders. In extreme circumstances, the lack of confidence in the police COULD HAVE LED some people to take the law into their own hands." No evidence or citation!
More punishment is "likely NECESSARY to reverse the murder spike and prevent future increase." Overwhelming science says the exact opposite, including the 116 scientific studies I cited above. Unreal abdication by New York Times editors.
I just can't get over this:
https://twitter.com/equalityAlec/status/1483935676353716226
This is heavy stuff. If you made it to the end here you deserve a photo of string bean. He’s a little old and only has one tooth left, but he hates copaganda a lot. 
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