4 ms·

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with the difficulty in accessing primary source material. Why don't any of these outlets post the surveillance video and l

• tedunangst 6y ago
  Do they have it? Police haven't always been forthcoming in publishing their evidence.
  • treis 6y ago
    If they don't how are they describing the quality of video and clear lack of resemblance?
    • danso 6y ago
      I don't know what passage you're describing, but this one is implied to be part of a narrative that is told from the perspective of Mr. Williams, i.e. he's the one who remembers "The photo was blurry, but it was clearly not Mr. Williams" > The detective turned over the first piece of paper. It was a still image from a surveillance video, showing a heavyset man, dressed in black and wearing a red St. Louis Cardinals cap, standing in front of a watch display. Five timepieces, worth $3,800, were shoplifted. > “Is this you?” asked the detective. > The second piece of paper was a close-up. The photo was blurry, but it was clearly not Mr. Williams. He picked up the image and held it next to his face. All the preceding grafs are told in the context of "this what Mr. Williams said happened", most explicitly this one: > “When’s the last time you went to a Shinola store?” one of the detectives asked, in Mr. Williams’s recollection. According to the ACLU complaint, the DPD and prosecutor have refused FOIA requests regarding the case: https://www.aclu.org/letter/aclu-michigan-complaint-re-use-facial-recognition https://www.aclu.org/letter/aclu-michigan-complaint-re-use-f... > Yet DPD has failed entirely to respond to Mr. Williams’ FOIA request. The Wayne County Prosecutor also has not provided documents.
      • treis 6y ago
        Maybe it's just me, but "we just took his word for it" doesn't strike me as particularly good journalism if that's what happened. If they really wrote these articles without that level of basic corroboration then that's pretty bad.
        • danso 6y ago
          It's a common technique in journalism to describe and attribute someone's recollection of events in a series of narrative paragraphs. It does not imply "we just took his word for it", though it does imply that the reporter finds his account to be credible enough to be given some prominent space. This arrest happened 6 months ago. Who else besides the suspect and the police do you believe reporters should ask for "basic corroboration" of events that took place inside a police station? Or do you think this story shouldn't be reported on at all until the police agree to give additional info?
          • phendrenad2 6y ago
            It should at least be very clear at the paragraph level what is established fact and what is speculation/opinion.
            • LycheeKing 6y ago
              I fell out of love with NPR and Ira Glass a long time ago. NPR is unfortunately an actor in the current culture war. The subject of the story is a POC, therefore by definition innocent victim of "systemic racism", "white supremacy", "implicit bias" or whatever fighting word the left comes up. Check any past story where the subject of the story is a POC, those are never in any way responsible for their own misfortunes. If in the current story time will show that the investigative lead was indeed correct to point Mr Williams you won't ever see a retraction or update on NPR.
            • lefstathiou 6y ago
              Well, it was “according to someone familiar with the matter”
• njharman 6y ago
  Because they're not in the business of providing information, transparency or journalism. They are in the business of exposing you to as many paid ads as possible. And they believe providing outgoing links reduces their ability to do that.
  • alasdair_ 6y ago
    >They are in the business of exposing you to as many paid ads as possible. NPR is a non-profit that is mostly funded by donations. They only have minimal paid ads on their website to pay for running costs - they could easily optimize the news pages to increase ad revenue but they don't because it would get in the way of their goals.
• BEEdwards 6y ago
  Even if the guy was an exact facial match, that doesn't justify the complete lack of basic police work to establish it was him.
  • czbond 6y ago
    Absolutely agree - and the consequences to a personal citizen for the lack of that basic police work can be long lastingly negative.