Originally published at: John Oliver on how crime reporting keeps us scared | Boing Boing
…
8 Likes
Crime is down across the board in the USA, fear mongering News outlets can’t sell that.
17 Likes
“If it bleeds, it leads!” (or possibly “ledes”)
Closely related, one of a very small number of tedious campaign tactics the republican party is plying is: “[insert large metro area near you] has been given over to utter lawless criminality! The police have been defunded! and [large metro area] is a dystopian nightmare of the homeless and druggies!” All in fuzzy black/white with shouting (no surprise racism) black males. All aimed at the suburbanites and rural voters who ‘never’ actually visit the nearby cities. So yes, popular since Reagan (hell, Nixon): "Keep them stupid! Keep them scared!" is their main political tedium on steroids -sigh-
9 Likes
That’s pretty much all GOP candidates have now. The ads also often run between segments of local EyeWitless News broadcasts, re-inforceing the rear amongst older white viewers.
5 Likes
Tain’t just the “news” that promotes fear and accentuates crime. Take a look at the schedule for primetime on all three major networks and you’ll discover that police/PI/crime shows take up at least a third of all the hours broadcast. It’s all copaganda and CBS is the biggest culprit (did I just make a pitch for a new crime show?).
8 Likes
it’s also just kind of tragic when you see parents (especially conservative ones) whose idea of the crime rate bears no relationship to the actual crime rate don’t let their children go around the neighborhood or anything.
6 Likes
And he did a show on copaganda a couple of weeks ago…
4 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
