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I noticed his violent crime graph stopped around 2013. Convenient. Yes violent crime is down by the standards of the previous 50 years but I'm pretty sure it ha
by gmarx 9y ago
I noticed his violent crime graph stopped around 2013. Convenient. Yes violent crime is down by the standards of the previous 50 years but I'm pretty sure it has been inching back up over the previous two, at least in cities. Nothing to panic about yet but also nothing to be dismissive about.
Also, though I too long for the old days of journalistic standards, let us a remember one of the side effects what creating the assumption that there is one correct mainstream view of reality and that anything that deviates too much from it is extremism (or today "fake news").
There is almost no such thing as a bias free reporting of facts and events in the news. Many of the things which were in the past dismissed as the views of cranks are now accepted as normal. Surely some of the views expressed in the darker corners of the internet today will someday be considered mainstream and many of the views expressed by the mainstream real news will some day be considered nuts.
- eridius 9y agoThe source for that graph is Pew, and if you look at the linked source, it looks like violent crime did in fact keep going down (at least until 2015, Pew's graph doesn't go past that) - http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/16/voters-perceptions-of-crime-continue-to-conflict-with-reality/ft_16-11-16_crime_trend/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/16/voters-perce...
- anigbrowl 9y agoThat's a bogus objection that ignores the yawning gap that opened up between perception and reality around the turn of the century, which is the author's point. As for the argument about there being so such thing as bias-free reporting, you're extrapolating from that to a position of epistemological abdication where you use that narrow fact as a justification for believing whatever you want to believe. While bias is inevitable, it is also to a large extent measurable, and the quality of news reportage can be measured in terms of its predictive power by comparing contemporaneous reports with knowledge gained in hindsight and ranking news sources by their reliability over time.
- gmarx 9y agoYour first sentence is just a long way of saying "you are wrong and I need offer no counter evidence because I am right" WRT your second sentence you are clearly so deep in your own cognitive bias you can't see anymore. I'd enjoy seeing such a study. I've seen plenty of reports about stuff that happened in the past century that were obviously now misreported by the mainstream press at the time.
- gnaritas 9y agoIt is totally something to be dismissive about because violent crime is firmly in a downtrend, that a year here or there has a slight uptick does not change the trend and is entirely irrelevant. To say violent crime is up at all is to be dishonest and nothing more than an attempt to incite fear.
- gmarx 9y agoWhat, even if violent crime is up you know the downward trend will continue so pointing it out is fear mongering? Given the down votes we can consider the point made; people enjoy being outraged by things they disagree with
- gnaritas 9y agoYes, misrepresenting minor bumps in a downtrend as "crime is going up and out of control" is fear mongering. We saw this lie continually used in the presidential campaign to mislead the right into thinking crime is out of control when exactly the opposite is true. The current liar in chief did this continually.
- dmckeon 9y agoRegarding the graph of perception, it shows "% saying there is more crime in the US than a year ago." That's more like an estimate of slope than an estimate of number of crimes. Also, if you drill down to the Pew image, and count years/tick marks, the year perception turned from downward to upward was 2001, which I believe is not a mere coincidence. Increasing awareness of more distant crimes through social networks and the aging of the baby boomer generation may also contribute to the increased perception of growth.