(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Fox News wants to help Republicans. So after gas prices dropped, crime became the top message [1]
['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']
Date: 2022-10-27
As the percentage of Republican campaign ads mentioning crime spiked from 27% in August to 40% in September, Fox News mentions of crime also skyrocketed. The mentions of crime started rising after mentions of gas prices dropped, and though gas price mentions went back up somewhat, crime talk rapidly eclipsed them.
This isn’t because of rising crime rates. Violent crime did rise in 2020, but 2021 crime statistics are kind of a mystery thanks to changes in how the FBI tracks and reports crime. And in the context of the past few decades, crime levels remain low:
x Fox News has been hyping crime for months now. This chart is from the FBI. I went back as far as I could to 1985. The crime rate in the 1990s was much higher than it is now. The slight bump we are experiencing now is just a tiny spike in comparison. pic.twitter.com/dZKSEAcLro — Decoding Fox News (@DecodingFoxNews) October 24, 2022
The headline on Bump’s piece showing that Fox News coverage of crime has risen as the gas prices attack on Democrats has faded is “What’s the non-obvious reason Fox News is talking about crime more?” But the reason is actually obvious, and it was predictable from months out. In 2018, we watched Fox News and Republicans hype “migrant caravans” for election leverage. We knew that if they were nervous—as they became in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision and the evidence that it was motivating Democratic voters—they’d manufacture something scary to their viewers. That’s not to slam Bump, who put together valuable data showing exactly how it’s happening. But the assumption that Fox News will do this needs to be baked into how other media outlets cover elections.
And other media outlets could work harder both to put crime rates into context—again, look at the chart above—and to talk carefully about exactly what crime is scaring people, given that a recent survey found that Americans’ top crime worry is mass shootings, followed by gun violence. Those are both worries that aren’t necessarily to the benefit of Republicans. The media could also talk a lot more about where the murder rate is highest, because it’s not where the stereotypes (long driven by the media) would put it. Instead, it’s highest in traditionally Republican states.
When Fox News talks about crime, and when Republican politicians run ads about crime, it’s often a dog whistle trying to scare conservative white voters about Black people and urban areas and Black people in urban areas. The rest of the media owes it to us to cover the issue with more facts and more nuance. Because Fox? It’s going to keep being the messaging wing of the Republican Party.
The 2022 midterms are just around the corner, and you sent us a ton of fantastic questions for The Downballot mailbag episode we promised this week, so we brought on Daily Kos Elections contributing editor Steve Singiser to help us answer them. Among the many topics we cover: which states are likely to report results slowly—and how will those results change over time; the House districts that look like key bellwethers for how the night might go, and which might offer surprises; why and how Democrats make the hard decisions on which races to triage; the top legislative chambers to keep an eye on; and plenty more!
x Embedded Content
RELATED STORIES:
The GOP’s only answer to what they say is a crime crisis is Herschel Walker’s fake badge
Republicans have big vulnerabilities on crime. Democrats just have to make the case
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/27/2131615/-Yep-Fox-News-definitely-ramped-up-its-crime-talk-to-help-boost-Republicans-in-November
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
