THREAD. I was invited to give a lecture at Oxford last week about police and prisons in the United States. After my talk, a student from Europe asked me if there was any hope to avoid fascism in the U.S. given the state of U.S. police and corporate media. A few thoughts.
THREAD. A rare thing is happening today: we are about to get a window into the secret world of how cops shape the news. There's a hearing this afternoon into how San Francisco cops manipulate the media through \u201cstrategic communications.\u201d The internal documents are shocking.
— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) May 5, 2022
THREAD. A survey just released about what people in the U.S. are most worried about should send chills down our spines. And this survey is Exhibit A in the profound failure of U.S. journalism to provide accurate information about the actual state of the world.
— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) May 14, 2022
It's imperative to understand that a central goal of state-sponsored Copaganda in the news is to distort which threats people see as urgent and which they don't think about as much. This manipulation is profitable for some people: https://t.co/PW2fsXn2Wc
— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) May 14, 2022
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THREAD. I've been studying how the New York Times uses sources. If you look at many of its articles together, something disturbing emerges: NYT relies on police and corporate sources to subtly shape how we see social problems and solutions. I try my best to lay it out below.
First, some background. Reporters and editors are constantly making choices about who to speak with to get story ideas about what to cover, who to interview to describe a problem, who to interview to tell us about the universe of potential solutions.
Importantly, sources ultimately quoted in an article often played a vital role behind the scenes. Many people don’t realize that the people quoted in articles explaining what happened and what could be done about it are often the same people who brought the story to the reporter.
In this process, many reporters rely on police and allies (prosecutors, pro-police officials, punishment bureaucrats, consultants, and corporate profiteers) to decide which stories to cover and to tell us "the facts." But when you look across articles, the pattern is striking:
Let's take a look at a few examples from the New York Times. Here's one about "perceptions" of rising crime:
First, some background. Reporters and editors are constantly making choices about who to speak with to get story ideas about what to cover, who to interview to describe a problem, who to interview to tell us about the universe of potential solutions.
Importantly, sources ultimately quoted in an article often played a vital role behind the scenes. Many people don’t realize that the people quoted in articles explaining what happened and what could be done about it are often the same people who brought the story to the reporter.
In this process, many reporters rely on police and allies (prosecutors, pro-police officials, punishment bureaucrats, consultants, and corporate profiteers) to decide which stories to cover and to tell us "the facts." But when you look across articles, the pattern is striking:
Let's take a look at a few examples from the New York Times. Here's one about "perceptions" of rising crime:
What do you notice?
— Alec Karakatsanis (@equalityAlec) April 8, 2022
\u201cPolice officials.\u201d
Commissioner
Commissioner
Commissioner
Professor
\u201cthe Police department\u201d
\u201cthe police department\u201d
\u201cofficials\u201d
Chief of detectives
@sbryt @wellonwheels @atrupar @FBI
Why weren\u2019t the texts, emails, notes, etc between Brett\U0001f37b\U0001f3b2\U0001f4b5\U0001f37a\U0001f5d3\U0001f37b\U0001f92eK & his then LOVER while working together in the WH ever provided to the committee. He sure wanted all the details about a Presidential erection, yet for any of his unwelcome dalliances he was given a cover up. pic.twitter.com/wA1q349edG
— Gerry Flood (@gerryflood8) August 4, 2022
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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
The story doesn\u2019t say you were told not to... it says you did so without approval and they tried to obfuscate what you found. Is that true?
— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) November 15, 2018
In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.
In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.
This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.
In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.
