Read on Twitter
THREAD: This is another very bad NYT article by the metro desk. Almost everything in here is worth criticizing, include the idea to write the story. But a few high-level thoughts: (1) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/nyregion/melinda-katz-queens.html
The article says there has been a "major" culture shift in Queens. Most good propaganda doesn't involve false statements--it's normative claims like this, reported as a fact, that try to set the boundaries for the reader's imagination of what's possible. (2)
The NYT makes the editorial *choice* to call her a "major" reformer, even though the paper knows that the office is still a mass incarceration machine that has barely changed at all. Very little has changed in any objective analysis of that office. (3)
This is the most subtle and dangerous kind of propaganda. It sets the table for people accepting minor tweaks to a horrific system that needs a complete transformation. (4)
I don't think most editors and reporters even understand that they are doing this. They fail to see their biases and the political choices they make in the most basic ways they frame their reporting. (5)
I wrote about the scope of the challenge ahead of us and how little these "progressive prosecutors" have done on any objective measure in much more depth here. I hope the reporter @troy_closson reads it. (6) https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/the-punishment-bureaucracy
The article also repeats the metro desks baseless claim that there has been "surging violent crime" in the city (that's false). I wrote about the politics of what "violence" elite people want you to focus on and what violence they want you to ignore. (5) https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/why-crime-isnt-the-question-and-police-arent-the-answer
But even if you focus on "violent crime" as defined by elites, the NYT repeatedly misstates the evidence. (6) https://twitter.com/davidminpdx/status/1287973483180244993
And even if "violent crime" were up, using the word "surging" is a political, editorial choice. They never used that term to describe the wave of police violence that NYPD has inflicted on Black and Brown communities. (7)
We desperately need editors and reporters to be more critical about the biases and perspectives they bring to the work, because it affects what stories they tell, how they tell them, and how millions of people understand the world. (8)
