This is why we tried to suggest sources and tools to help combat our own blindspots. It's something we each can do, without waiting for systemic changes.
I didn't recall hearing anything about this crime spike, so I clicked through to your source. The graph at the top tells me that murders were up by nearly 50%, at peak, from a 2019 baseline - and the graph only goes back to 2018. IIRC, violent crime of all sorts was much higher in my youth, and is overall much lower today. A graph of murders - dating back to e.g. 1960 - would probably show this clearly. I don't *know*, but I suspect the 2022 peak of (reported) murders wouldn't approach the 1960 numbers, if the graph went back this far.
FWIW, this is classic media recency bias. I lose count of headlines like "last Tuesday we hit the peak of X ... since the beginning of last year". Usually the second clause is in the article text, not the clickbait heading.
Most likely, this site simply doesn't have data before 2018, not in an attempt to produce scary results, but because that's when they started recording. But I'd love to see farther detail (from BCB?) about how this recent spike compares with data from the last 60 to 100 years.
Other than that, I guess my experience demonstrates your point. I've been following the news much more in the past decade than before that - now to the point of checking the AP morning news summary 6 days a week (it doesn't come out on Saturdays), and my preferred newspaper most mornings - and I was unaware of this claim, let alone any limits to its validity.
Very good. But very obvious. Don’t see how it is fixable. The culture or society or whatever you want to call it is fractured. Humpty Dumpty
This is why we tried to suggest sources and tools to help combat our own blindspots. It's something we each can do, without waiting for systemic changes.
I didn't recall hearing anything about this crime spike, so I clicked through to your source. The graph at the top tells me that murders were up by nearly 50%, at peak, from a 2019 baseline - and the graph only goes back to 2018. IIRC, violent crime of all sorts was much higher in my youth, and is overall much lower today. A graph of murders - dating back to e.g. 1960 - would probably show this clearly. I don't *know*, but I suspect the 2022 peak of (reported) murders wouldn't approach the 1960 numbers, if the graph went back this far.
FWIW, this is classic media recency bias. I lose count of headlines like "last Tuesday we hit the peak of X ... since the beginning of last year". Usually the second clause is in the article text, not the clickbait heading.
Most likely, this site simply doesn't have data before 2018, not in an attempt to produce scary results, but because that's when they started recording. But I'd love to see farther detail (from BCB?) about how this recent spike compares with data from the last 60 to 100 years.
Other than that, I guess my experience demonstrates your point. I've been following the news much more in the past decade than before that - now to the point of checking the AP morning news summary 6 days a week (it doesn't come out on Saturdays), and my preferred newspaper most mornings - and I was unaware of this claim, let alone any limits to its validity.