5 ms·

There is a lawyer (Alec Karakatsanis) who has been writing about police driven propaganda for years. His recent book "Copaganda" is fantastic. He carefully brea

by aedocw 1y ago

There is a lawyer (Alec Karakatsanis) who has been writing about police driven propaganda for years. His recent book "Copaganda" is fantastic. He carefully breaks down how major papers (NYT is chief among them) create stories that fit a narrative by using very one-sided sources. Like an article on crime written in bad faith where the only people quotes are police, police consultants, and ex-police. It's a really good book, I wish more people were aware of it and read it.

louwrentius 1y ago
Copaganda is indeed a good book, recommend.
AdamN 1y ago
Didn't read the book but I think it's more insidious than what you wrote. The journalists don't think they're writing these stories to amplify the police narrative (they think they're unbiased). They just don't have the judgement (or will?) to look beyond the initial narrative which is police-driven. In the end if a journalist can get their story out faster by leaning on a few 'trusted sources' and then move onto the next article, most of them will and their managers will encourage it. Maybe you'll get a more in depth story if it makes it to On The Media a week or two later but that's basically all we have at this point which is very sad.
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > The journalists don't think they're writing these stories to amplify the police narrative (they think they're unbiased). They just don't have the judgement (or will?) to look beyond the initial narrative which is police-driven. No, they know what they are doing and you can tell they know what they are doing by the careful way language is used differently for similar facts when the police or other favored entities are involved vs. other entities in similar factual circumstances (particularly, the use of constructions which separates responsibility for an adverse result from the actor, which is overwhelmingly used in US media when police are the actors—and also, when organs of the Israeli state are—but not for most other violent actors.) This is frequently described as “the exonerative mood” (or, sometimes, “the exonerative tense”, though it is not really a verb tense.) Carefully calibrated, highly-selective use of (often, quite awkward) linguistic constructs does not happen unconsciously, it is a deliberate, knowing choice.
  - chrononaut 1y ago
    > No, [journalists] know what they are doing ... Carefully calibrated, highly-selective use of (often, quite awkward) linguistic constructs does not happen unconsciously, it is a deliberate, knowing choice. The incredible vast majority of people in the world are acting in good faith. The way you are framing this is that nearly all journalists are acting in bad faith, which makes me believe the arguments of the parent ("The journalists don't think they're writing these stories to amplify the police narrative") more so than the argument you're making here.
    - dragonwriter 1y ago
      > The incredible vast majority of people in the world are acting in good faith. Maybe, maybe not. It is also true that the incredible vast majority of people in the world aren’t corporate journalists, also. > The way you are framing this is that nearly all journalists are acting in bad faith Nearly all American corporate media has a conscious, top-down policy starting with the owners and editorial board to favor certain institutions, which is enforced by hiring, firing, promotions, and assignments of staff. The specific beneficiaries of this vary somewhat between outlet and outlet and over time, but both American police broadly and State of Israel are common beneficiaries across most outlets. Journalists either comply are they aren’t journalists in the corporate media covering the issues to which these biases are relevant for long. Corporate media journalists aren’t independent actors.
    - 2THFairy 1y ago
      The problem is that it is essentially impossible for a journalist to exist in the western world and not have heard of the criticism about how cops' actions get reported. The term 'past exonerative tense' is dated to 1991.'"Mistakes were made" was popularized by Nixon. To continue pulling this nonsense is wilful ignorance on the journalists' part, and effectively equivalent to bad faith.
    - GeoAtreides 1y ago
      >The incredible vast majority of people in the world are acting in good faith. this a very westerner perspective on society. Ask an Eastern European (like myself) how the vast majority of people are really acting.
- oezi 1y ago
  I thought insidious means sinister/evil, but what you point out just shows that we as a society don't value news enough to pay for anything more than the 1-4 hours of time invested per news article.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  It's more perverse than that. Journalists know if they don't toe the party line, their access to voluntary information from law enforcement will be cut off entirely. Hard to write an article when everyone refuses to talk to you.
0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago
Who else would you have the journalists talk to, in order to get the other side of the story? Criminals?
- kmoser 1y ago
  Who better to talk to about crimes than those who commit those very crimes?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- immibis 1y ago
  Yes? Journalists in the past talked to criminals.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    of course, a criminal would have no reason to lie.
    - samtp 1y ago
      of course, a cop would have no reason to lie.
    - bongodongobob 1y ago
      Breaking laws doesn't make someone dishonest. You should really think about why you think that's the case. Perhaps someone has an active interest in you believing that.
    - immibis 1y ago
      You've lumped everyone you don't like into one bucket - "criminal" - without considering their individual nature. You're probably a criminal (there are lots of stupid laws that people break all the time) but do you have a reason to lie?
- serf 1y ago
  well, that's part of the job. when Barbara Walters was interviewing Fidel Castro , what do you think was going on from the perspective of the United States? They're not all such prestigious examples, but the point stands.
notmyjob 1y ago
Prosecutors are worse. Cops are going be cops. Our justice system is where the buck stops, or should.
lupusreal 1y ago
[flagged]
EasyMark 1y ago
Like touch fentanyl and you'll drop dead from your heart exploding?
joe_the_user 1y ago
Police propaganda is serious problem. But this seems like the least appropriate thing to dismiss as "just police propaganda". What's bad about police propaganda is it perpetuates a certain politics by maintain atmosphere of fear as well as pushing certain stereotypes of ethnic groups. But when the police are exaggerating the terrorist potential of actual organized criminals, things seem much muddier. I think people should concerned about organized scammers - their victims are usually the poor, notably. It's true their terrorist potential is overstated but only because they are profit-oriented but it's not like their other activities should be ignored.

by aedocw 1y ago

louwrentius 1y ago

Copaganda is indeed a good book, recommend.

AdamN 1y ago

Didn't read the book but I think it's more insidious than what you wrote. The journalists don't think they're writing these stories to amplify the police narrative (they think they're unbiased). They just don't have the judgement (or will?) to look beyond the initial narrative which is police-driven. In the end if a journalist can get their story out faster by leaning on a few 'trusted sources' and then move onto the next article, most of them will and their managers will encourage it. Maybe you'll get a more in depth story if it makes it to On The Media a week or two later but that's basically all we have at this point which is very sad.

dragonwriter 1y ago
> The journalists don't think they're writing these stories to amplify the police narrative (they think they're unbiased). They just don't have the judgement (or will?) to look beyond the initial narrative which is police-driven. No, they know what they are doing and you can tell they know what they are doing by the careful way language is used differently for similar facts when the police or other favored entities are involved vs. other entities in similar factual circumstances (particularly, the use of constructions which separates responsibility for an adverse result from the actor, which is overwhelmingly used in US media when police are the actors—and also, when organs of the Israeli state are—but not for most other violent actors.) This is frequently described as “the exonerative mood” (or, sometimes, “the exonerative tense”, though it is not really a verb tense.) Carefully calibrated, highly-selective use of (often, quite awkward) linguistic constructs does not happen unconsciously, it is a deliberate, knowing choice.
- chrononaut 1y ago
  > No, [journalists] know what they are doing ... Carefully calibrated, highly-selective use of (often, quite awkward) linguistic constructs does not happen unconsciously, it is a deliberate, knowing choice. The incredible vast majority of people in the world are acting in good faith. The way you are framing this is that nearly all journalists are acting in bad faith, which makes me believe the arguments of the parent ("The journalists don't think they're writing these stories to amplify the police narrative") more so than the argument you're making here.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > The incredible vast majority of people in the world are acting in good faith. Maybe, maybe not. It is also true that the incredible vast majority of people in the world aren’t corporate journalists, also. > The way you are framing this is that nearly all journalists are acting in bad faith Nearly all American corporate media has a conscious, top-down policy starting with the owners and editorial board to favor certain institutions, which is enforced by hiring, firing, promotions, and assignments of staff. The specific beneficiaries of this vary somewhat between outlet and outlet and over time, but both American police broadly and State of Israel are common beneficiaries across most outlets. Journalists either comply are they aren’t journalists in the corporate media covering the issues to which these biases are relevant for long. Corporate media journalists aren’t independent actors.
  - 2THFairy 1y ago
    The problem is that it is essentially impossible for a journalist to exist in the western world and not have heard of the criticism about how cops' actions get reported. The term 'past exonerative tense' is dated to 1991.'"Mistakes were made" was popularized by Nixon. To continue pulling this nonsense is wilful ignorance on the journalists' part, and effectively equivalent to bad faith.
  - GeoAtreides 1y ago
    >The incredible vast majority of people in the world are acting in good faith. this a very westerner perspective on society. Ask an Eastern European (like myself) how the vast majority of people are really acting.
oezi 1y ago
I thought insidious means sinister/evil, but what you point out just shows that we as a society don't value news enough to pay for anything more than the 1-4 hours of time invested per news article.
heavyset_go 1y ago
It's more perverse than that. Journalists know if they don't toe the party line, their access to voluntary information from law enforcement will be cut off entirely. Hard to write an article when everyone refuses to talk to you.

0xDEAFBEAD 1y ago

Who else would you have the journalists talk to, in order to get the other side of the story? Criminals?

kmoser 1y ago
Who better to talk to about crimes than those who commit those very crimes?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
immibis 1y ago
Yes? Journalists in the past talked to criminals.
- dylan604 1y ago
  of course, a criminal would have no reason to lie.
  - samtp 1y ago
    of course, a cop would have no reason to lie.
  - bongodongobob 1y ago
    Breaking laws doesn't make someone dishonest. You should really think about why you think that's the case. Perhaps someone has an active interest in you believing that.
  - immibis 1y ago
    You've lumped everyone you don't like into one bucket - "criminal" - without considering their individual nature. You're probably a criminal (there are lots of stupid laws that people break all the time) but do you have a reason to lie?
serf 1y ago
well, that's part of the job. when Barbara Walters was interviewing Fidel Castro , what do you think was going on from the perspective of the United States? They're not all such prestigious examples, but the point stands.

notmyjob 1y ago

Prosecutors are worse. Cops are going be cops. Our justice system is where the buck stops, or should.

lupusreal 1y ago

[flagged]

EasyMark 1y ago

Like touch fentanyl and you'll drop dead from your heart exploding?

joe_the_user 1y ago

Police propaganda is serious problem. But this seems like the least appropriate thing to dismiss as "just police propaganda". What's bad about police propaganda is it perpetuates a certain politics by maintain atmosphere of fear as well as pushing certain stereotypes of ethnic groups. But when the police are exaggerating the terrorist potential of actual organized criminals, things seem much muddier. I think people should concerned about organized scammers - their victims are usually the poor, notably. It's true their terrorist potential is overstated but only because they are profit-oriented but it's not like their other activities should be ignored.