The Thin Blue Lies Behind Crime Wave Hype
Right-leaning media have used the uptick in certain crime categories to argue we need more cops and law enforcement to save our cities.
Josmar Trujillo
Shining a Spotlight on Anti-Homeless Reporters
The New York Post cannot and will not give up its obsessive, cruel and deranged fascination with shaming homeless people.
NYT Perp Walks a Bronx Neighborhood
After two people, one a police officer, were killed by the NYPD in the Bronx, the New York Times took its cue from law enforcement officials in shaping the early narrative around “gang violence”—impugning an entire neighborhood in the process.
The ‘Total Anarchy’ of Wet Cops
For some, seeing a cop humiliated suggests a breakdown of society in a way that seeing a cop engaging in the humiliation and abuse of a black person does not.
Police Drones Expand as Media Shrink
Media’s propensity to serve as stenographers and lapdogs for law enforcement is nothing new. But the coverage of the NYPD’s drone roll-out is particularly egregious, because of how the move in the Big Apple could significantly impact surveillance and civil liberties nationwide.
Papers Insist ‘We Need’ Secret Gang Databases—Just Like We ‘Needed’ Stop & Frisk
You’d think after being so spectacularly wrong on Stop and Frisk, the Daily News would take the lesson to be more skeptical and wary about police practices. Alas, no, the editorial instinct is the same: support the police department to the point of echoing its talking points.
Ramsey Orta Can’t Breathe
The experience of Ramsey Orta captures important truths about how targeted, politicized punishment is directed at those who dare to create media that challenge authority.
Is Facilitating a Paid Informant Program Part of Journalism’s Job?
A search of NY1’s coverage shows hundreds of segments this year, thousands over the past few years, that encourage viewers to send tips to the Police Foundation’s Crime Stoppers hotline.
To Defeat Transparency, NYPD Turns to Journalist-Turned-Cop-Turned-Journalist-Turned-Cop
The biggest, most resourced police department in the world likes to work in the shadows. You want to question that? You’re probably a terrorist enabler.
NY Daily News: Broken Windows ‘Works,’ and if It Hurts Immigrants—‘Too Bad’
The Daily News editorial board grasps on for dear life to a racially targeted, decades-old policing philosophy as something that “works” without having to prove to their readers any demonstrable correlation to crime levels.
The Busted Theory of ‘Broken Windows’ Still Has Media Defenders
Broken Windows enjoyed, for many years, a reputation as public safety gospel and the miracle solution to New York’s crime-ridden past. But now a report by the New York Police Department’s inspector general’s office has undermined the premise of the city’s famed crime-fighting philosophy
NYT: Protesters and Prosecutor Should Be Friends
The New York Times sneered at a growing movement against Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson, who is now being criticized for recommending—and getting—a no-jail sentence for the police officer who killed Akai Gurley in 2014.
NYPD’s Arrests of Citizen Journalists Should Spark Outrage
Last week, New York City police officers arrested four well-known activists for filming them. Copwatchers—people who regularly film and document police activity—have often been targeted by cops who don’t want to be recorded, despite reminders that recording police interactions is legal in the city. While legal protections for filming police are still unclear in some […]
Police and Media Agree: Cops Just Need to Be Nicer
The police reform conversation, pushed into the national consciousness through mass protests and acts of civil disobedience by everyday people, was steered toward the theme of “community policing” by establishment figures—with the help of the media.
A Day in the Quality of Life at the Manhattan Institute
Last week I rolled up to 7 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan for a “Quality of Life Panel” hosted by the Manhattan Institute, one of the city’s most influential conservative think tanks.
Concocting a Crime-Ageddon to Promote Police Power
The media-driven conversation on policing and public safety begins with the simplistic premise that the amount and aggressiveness of policing solely determines the crime rate.
Forgetting Ferguson
After the first few weeks of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, during which corporate media were forced to show the country and the world the extent of America’s militarized police state, those media largely moved on.
#FTP Film Tha Police
Communities of color are learning to rely on themselves to report on what happens around them–and to them–by recording images of police activity.
CNN Attempts Actual Journalism—but Reverts to Embedded Reporting
Watching coverage of the unrest in Ferguson on CNN last night (8/18/14), I was struck at the actual journalism I was treated to by CNN‘s Jake Tapper. It’s not every day corporate media is awestruck by the heavy-handedness of a militarized attack on civilians on US soil. But such was the case for Tapper, who […]
RACE LENS: White, White, Don’t Tell Me
NPR’s historic issue with its lack of diversity isn’t likely to be fixed by their new boss.
