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Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
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Feb 15 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Did you know that, according to a "news" outlet called Axios, there is a new "crisis"? Forget about ecological collapse, rising domestic and global fascism, wage theft, extreme hunger and inequality, crumbling health care, etc. axios.com/shoplifting-re…
One problem? The core of the article is based on a series of false claims to benefit the retail industry and cops. It's just utter propaganda in service of corporate and carceral interests. Shameful reporting by @jenniferkingson. project-disco.org/innovation/021…
But it's not just about the fake shoplifting "crisis" in service of corporate retail interests. It's the evidence-free link to harsher human caging policies, bail reform, and police budgets that is so insidious. Asserting this link is like climate science denial.
I have explained at length how dangerous journalism like this is. Many people will be separated from their kids and die in jail cells because of it. Read this thread to understand the pattern.
When you actually look at the pattern (and that the Axios article's only sources are corporate industry executives), you see how closely the article resembles a corporate press release. This isn't "news," it's marketing. Deeply insidious manipulation.
And read this fantastic piece by @amandamull theatlantic.com/health/archive…
Or this piece by @mmasnick techdirt.com/articles/20211…
And this great article by @jackwdenton curbed.com/2022/02/shopli…

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More from @equalityAlec

Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Feb 16
Thread. Earlier today, the New York Times published multiple factual claims that are untrue. What happened is part of a pattern at NYT. I try to document it below in as much detail as I can.
Today's article was ostensibly about a school board recall in San Francisco. As it has done so many times, however, the NYT let its San Francisco "Bureau Chief" Thomas Fuller insert a gratuitous paragraph about crime. nytimes.com/2022/02/16/us/… Image
Note first that Fuller is same NYT "bureau chief" caught last year fabricating a "shoplifting epidemic" and then engaging in the equivalent of climate science denial by suggesting a reason for the (nonexistent) epidemic was mild sentencing reform.
Read 14 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Feb 14
When you hear the news talking about "crime waves," think about what it means that the intentional arsenic poisoning of thousands of people in California prisons was never prosecuted. truthout.org/articles/this-…
Cops and prosecutors decide what counts as "crime," and reporters play a huge role in manipulating which crimes against which people we care about. This arsenic poisoning could have been charged as 10,000s of violent felony crimes, skewing the entire state's crime stats.
I write about this in more depth in the attached article from my book Usual Cruelty: yalelawjournal.org/forum/the-puni…
Read 4 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Feb 3
THREAD. There has been another deeply harmful New York Times story about police. I try my best to walk through what happened because the stakes are so high and because the level of right-wing copaganda being pushed by the New York Times is increasingly alarming.
Yesterday, NYT published another in a long line of pro-police articles. It appears to have been pitched by PR for a group of right-wing police leaders to undermine even the embarrassingly meaningless Executive Order on policing that Biden is considering. nytimes.com/2022/02/02/us/…
As I’ve done with many New York Times stories, the place to start is to look at the sources in the article. Just look at the range of sources, in chronological order, that the paper thinks is sufficient to tell you this story. Tell me what you notice:
Read 17 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Feb 1
THREAD. I'm continually surprised at how many people I meet in elite spaces like journalism and academia who have formed very confident views about the world without 1) studying left texts or 2) participating in any kind of real struggle against power.
For example, it's rare to meet a journalist or scholar who has actually engaged with radical texts but who isn't a leftist, and even more rare, e.g., to meet a journalist or scholar who has engaged in any kind of struggle against power and who supports more money for cops.
I could be wrong about it, but many well-meaning people seem to be basically unaware of the transformative power of exposing yourself to radical ideas and working in struggle with people being targeted by power. They don't get how such experiences might undermine their certainty.
Read 9 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Jan 30
THREAD. I've been thinking about this New York Times headline that permits a powerful politician to spread false information. It surfaces several important flaws that people should know about a lot of recent news coverage.
A first major flaw: there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that little tweaks to bail laws or policing strategies or prosecutor charging policies could even possibly have significant effects on "crime." At most, these things would be extremely marginal.
The root causes of crime are big things! Like inequality, trauma, toxic masculinity, addiction, housing, health care, mental illness, unemployment, social unrest and alienation, lots of guns, etc. It's false to suggest that tiny changes punishment bureaucrats make matter a lot.
Read 19 tweets
Alec Karakatsanis Profile picture
Jan 28
This is a devastating, sober, measured criticism of New York Times's new The Morning columnist by a rigorous media watchdog. It's just brutal. Many people were alarmed when NYT hired someone with such a track record of pro-cop incompetence and dishonesty. fair.org/home/nyt-twist…
As @FAIRmediawatch shows, one side effect of hiring reporters with known bias is it cheapens the work of other rigorous NYT journalists and reduces the extent to which people trust them. A monumental failure for the NYT and for all people who care about reasoned public debate.
This is really important work by @HollarJulie that adds a great deal to the public’s understanding of what is going on here.
Read 4 tweets

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