Murder rates are hitting multidecade highs and setting new records in some cities. But CNN’s media reporters have determined the real problem with the surge in homicides: Fox News is covering them.
CNN’s Brian Stelter refers to the current violent crime wave in multiple Democrat-run cities as an “imagined drama that Fox News presents.” Fox News, says CNN’s Oliver Darcy, is an “Instagram filter,” and Fox’s coverage is “distorted” and not representative of reality.
Stelter gives the game away, mentioning that the focus on crime is anti-Biden and anti-Democrat. Meanwhile, here is a selection of headlines from CNN’s actual journalists about the “imagined drama” of crime:
- “US records highest increase in nation’s homicide rate in modern history, CDC says”
- “Fueled by gun violence, cities across the US are breaking all-time homicide records this year”
- “10 of the country’s most populous cities set homicide records last year”
And yes, I am aware that CNN carries imaginary, fake news stories all the time, but these aren’t them.
In Los Angeles, homicides have jumped 94% over two years. New York City has come close to 500 homicides in each of the last two years, a number not seen since 2011. Murders and assaults in New York City’s subways are at their highest since the late 1990s. Philadelphia saw its most murders in recorded history. Chicago led the country with 797 homicides in 2021, nearly 300 more than in 2019 and the most murders in the city since 1996.
Stelter and Darcy have two major complaints about Fox News. One has to do with an exaggerated chyron about “apocalyptic hellscapes.” Fine, whatever. But CNN should be careful about picking battles over silly or ill-thought-out chyrons.
The second complaint is that Fox is hosting events in New York City and Los Angeles, seemingly implying that crime isn’t really a concern in those cities. This is even dumber than claims that global warming is fake because it’s cold outside today or that it is the cause of every severe storm.
Yes, crime isn’t a huge concern in certain parts of these cities. It is a major concern in other parts, and most of the victims are black residents. In New York City (where Stelter’s show, Reliable Sources, is filmed), 65% of homicide victims in 2020 were black. Nationwide, more than half of homicide victims are black. The two-year surge in homicides across the country affects black Americans more than anyone else. This seems to be lost on both Stelter and Darcy.
This is not “imagined drama” or an Instagram filter. This is a very real surge in killings. It makes cities and neighborhoods more dangerous, usually at the expense of working black residents. This isn’t some manufactured issue or niche policy debate. For some people — and I’m guessing they’re not living in Stelter’s zip code — it is a real concern raising serious (and fair) questions about why the Democrats running these cities can’t protect their residents, even though it is their primary job.
That is the story here, not whatever stupid stuff Fox News puts in its chyrons.
