The mainstream press in the US has been foisting quasi conspiratorial views about policing and rarely offers context for the complicated issues we have. This is creating extremism among a corner of the public.

For one, they shouldn't be reporting about police shootings of unarmed people without numbers to place it in wider context. That's as irresponsible as reporting about MS-13 or terrorism or covid-19 without data. Then the public has no idea what response should be.

If the public knew the actual statistical chance of various threats, social problems, they could callibrate the public policy response. If they have no context at all of course some people think anything is justified to respond to an issue they don't understand.

Of course press has had a long history of exaggerating threats and shock value headlines and moralizing when you call them on it -- child kidnappings, satanic panic, crime, terrorism, y2k, even killer bees.

In the midst of whatever the panic is, if you suggest there should be a more empirical response you're usually accused of not caring about whatever the problem is. The issue is that if you actually care about social problems you do need to respond proportionally.

This started when media started downplaying the risk of getting covid-19 at police reform rallies, never pointing out around 40 unarmed people a year are shot and killed by police whereas 150,000 people have died from covid-19 this year.

I imagine if you just surveyed people about what they think the number of innocent people shot by police every year is they would think it was in the thousands, they would imagine it outpaces homicides, suicides. Why not just defund police, eliminate police?

All the while people in the press moralize about extreme actors and conspiracy theorists on social media when we have established well funded institutions doing little to nothing to promote much besides shock value, certainly not offer data and context.