Breathe easy, people! This whole thing was just a couple of guys who died of suicide. No one else was really involved and evil died with them.
Breathe easy, people! This whole thing was just a couple of guys who died of suicide. No one else was really involved and evil died with them.
Interesting. Who did they decide he was running it for instead?
The article is bizarre because it just ends with “we’re looking into the files” but otherwise repeats the FBI conclusion offering the agents’ and prosecutors’ opinions in the form of emails that there wasn’t enough evidence to do anything.
We’ve all heard this type of Official Copspeak before. The local press dutifully informs us about “suspects” and “gang members” and “burglars.” They’re infiltrating our neighborhoods, rampaging through our streets, climbing in our windows. The police, of course, are just doing their part to keep us safe. Local media and community-based message boards they pander to read like police blotters. “Dial 1-800-985-TIPS for your friendly neighborhood detective!”
But what if publishing police department press releases isn’t really journalism, but rather free public relations for an already extremely powerful, routinely violent, often corrupt and deeply conflicted institution? What if the genre of so-called “crime’ reporting is inherently reactionary and the whole enterprise of how we think about “crime” needs to be deconstructed and reconsidered?
On this week’s episode, we discuss why local “crime” reporting widely suffers from racist tabloidism and what overworked and under-resourced journalists can do to gather information from sources that don’t wear badges.
We are joined by Chicago-based activists Sharlyn Grace and Malcolm London.