Let’s Thank the Good Reporters and TV Hosts That We Still Have Left
There are a lot of Right Wing biased reporters and opinion writers in mainstream media. I wrote about that here:
Mainstream Media’s Subtle Right Wing Propaganda Helped Elect Trump and Could Lose Congress for Democrats, if We Fail to Face It
We in the public need to contact media outlets when they show Right Wing bias or lack of objectivity in their reporting and demand they correct their errors and do better.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how important it is to do a two pronged approach — to both criticize media when they screw up and also thank them when they do well.
Let’s see if we can catch any more flies with honey than with vinegar. We can contact media outlets when the writers and editors do a good job and thank them.
Here’s a threadreader app unroll of a great Twitter thread by civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger about the problems with how media cover crime with a Right Wing sensationalist bias.
Below is the excellent Washington Post article by Phillip Bump, that Scott mentions at the beginning of the thread. As Scott says, it’s “a rare, thoughtful, & nuanced analysis of crime data & how outsized media sensationalism drives public opinion. Not facts.”
He describes how people overestimate crime rates in the nation as a whole, though they usually didn’t see it as a problem in their own communities. This appears to be due to media coverage, particularly Right Wing media coverage. For example,
“Fox News and others in the conservative media were effective at portraying the protests during the summer of 2020 as incessantly violent and enormously damaging to a large number of major American cities over an extended period of time, even when that was easily disprovable. Now, with the midterms looming, Fox News is talking about crime more than ever.”
Let’s contact the Executive Editor at Washington Post to express our gratitude for the great job Phillip Bump and the editors did on this story.
Here’s how to contact her.
Here’s what I wrote:
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Hi, Ms. Buzbee
I am writing to say thanks to the writer Phillip Bump and the editors, for the great article in Washington Post, entitled “Crime is surging (in Fox News coverage.)” I appreciated seeing all the graphs and statistics, and getting objective information on how the perception of crime differs from the actual incidence, due to distorted media coverage, especially from conservative media.
With so much distorted coverage, objective information is a breath of fresh air. Thanks again and please tell everyone involved with producing the article to keep up the good work. We in the public need this very much.
Julie Hotard, Ph.D., Psychologist
Washington state
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
Later on in his thread, Scott Hechinger points out an excellent Bloomberg article that tells “the truth about crime & how media is playing a role in actually undermining safety by amplifying police talking points.” If the url link doesn’t come out, just google Bloomberg and the article title.
Fear of Rampant Crime Is Derailing New York City’s Recovery
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-is-nyc-safe-crime-stat-reality/?srnd=premium&sref=IUm3fzs0
I contacted the Bloomberg newsroom Standards Editor at Bloomberg, at letters@bloomberg.net to thank them for what a great job the writers — Fola Akinnibi and Raeedah Wahid — and the editors — did on this article.
The writers did citied relevant and important statistics and showed how perceptions of crime in New York city have been distorted by factors such as media covering sensationalistic crimes without mentioning the actual overall rates of crime.
I’ll catch you good folks again later.
