By Judd Legum, Photo: Ben Margot/AP, The Guardian, December 7, 2021
In the United States, only certain types of theft are newsworthy.
For example, on 14 June 2021, a reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco tweeted a cellphone video of a man in Walgreens filling a garbage bag with stolen items and riding his bicycle out of the store. According to San Francisco’s crime database, the value of the merchandise stolen in the incident was between $200 and $950.
According to an analysis by Fair, a media watchdog, this single incident generated 309 stories between 14 June and 12 July. A search by Popular Information reveals that, since 12 July, there have been dozens of additional stories mentioning the incident. The theft has been covered in a slew of major publications including the New York Times, USA Today and CNN.
Comments (0)