{"id":1197584,"date":"2022-01-07T15:50:48","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T20:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1197584"},"modified":"2022-01-07T15:50:52","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T20:50:52","slug":"media-say-conservatives-invented-right-wing-shoplifting-freak-out-here-are-the-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/media-say-conservatives-invented-right-wing-shoplifting-freak-out-here-are-the-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Media Say Conservatives Invented \u2018Right-Wing Shoplifting Freak-Out.\u2019 Here Are The Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmedia-say-conservatives-invented-right-wing-shoplifting-freak-out-here-are-the-facts%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1197584&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The media are on the verge of declaring smash-and-grab robberies \u201cmostly peaceful looting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In response to viral video footage of mobs demolishing store display cases and calmly walking out with armloads of merchandise, a growing number of media outlets claim the whole phenomenon has been exaggerated by \u201cright-wing media\u201d looking to create a \u201cmoral panic,\u201d retailers angling to hoodwink the public, and \u201claw enforcement lobbyists\u201d desperate for an excuse to increase police funding. But these conspiratorial allegations are often refuted by the stories\u2019 own reporting \u2014 not to mention numerous independent sources.<\/p>\n<p>In recent weeks, the media seem to have created a new genre of coverage: smash-and-grab denialism. Outlets from The Atlantic, to NBC News, to the Los Angeles Times have dabbled in the narrative, which MSNBC\u2019s Chris Hayes tied together during a December 29 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=crAEOKfV1P0\">segment<\/a> titled \u201cDebunking The Right-Wing\u2019s Shoplifting Freak-Out.\u201d Hayes admitted the nation\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/twelve-major-cities-with-new-homicide-records-in-2021-all-led-by-democrats\">skyrocketing homicide rate<\/a> is \u201creal, and really bad.\u201d But he claimed without proof that \u201cright-wing media is [sic] constantly peddling \u2026 a completely propagandistic story, specifically about out-of-control retail theft,\u201d which has \u201cbasically no evidence to actually support it.\u201d Hayes also, predictably, played the race card. \u201cLike, there is nothing that Fox [News] loves more than surveillance footage of, particularly, black people stealing a thing, and they will run that 24\/7 if they can,\u201d Hayes asserted.<\/p>\n[embedded content]\n<p>Coverage of smash-and-grab crimes is far from limited to \u201cright-wing\u201d sources. Last November 24, CNN ran a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2021\/11\/23\/us\/smash-and-grab-thefts-explainer-cec\/index.html\">story<\/a> by Faith Karimi titled \u201cWhy some US cities are facing a spree of \u2018smash-and-grab\u2019 crimes.\u201d The New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/11\/26\/business\/theft-retail-crime-robbery.html\">followed suit<\/a> two days later. The Washington Post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/2021\/12\/03\/retail-theft-organized-crime\/\">reported<\/a> in December that \u201clarge-scale \u2018smash-and-grabs\u2019 have been on the rise this year.\u201d Even Hayes noted the \u201cnarrative that America is awash in crime\u201d has appeared in \u201ca lot\u201d of \u201clocal news, as well,\u201d although he ignored the fact that coverage of the same story across media outlets from every part of the political spectrum \u2014 conservative (Fox News, Newsmax), liberal (CNN, NYT, WaPo), and nonpartisan (local news) \u2014 increases the likelihood that the story is true.<\/p>\n<p>That is the problem. Few things destroy a politician\u2019s chances at reelection like a crime surge, especially one spread throughout cities controlled by the same party \u2014 so the same media that spent 2020 whitewashing \u201cmostly peaceful protests\u201d and 2021 denying the existence of CRT in public school curricula must now insist that spooked consumers collectively hallucinated a crime spree.<\/p>\n<p>One of Hayes\u2019 guests, Amanda Mull, got the revisionist ball rolling with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2021\/12\/shoplifting-holiday-theft-panic\/621108\/\">an essay<\/a> in The Atlantic accusing stores and retailers of fomenting a \u201cmoral panic\u201d and of backing measures that \u201cencourage people to see even the pettiest property crime as a mortal sin.\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/stjohndc.org\/en\/orthodoxy-foundation\/thou-shalt-not-steal\">Deliberate<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pravoslavieto.com\/docs\/eng\/Orthodox_Catechism_of_Philaret.htm\">theft<\/a> <em>is <\/em>a <a href=\"https:\/\/3278f4fc-404c-4f4b-9c84-0a92e90d0713\/encourage%20people%20to%20see%20even%20the%20pettiest%20property%20crime%20as%20a%20mortal%20sin,\">mortal sin<\/a>; Mull should mull over staying in her own lane.) But she admitted that in San Francisco\u2019s \u201ccentral district, where expensive fashion boutiques and other kinds of retail outlets are clustered together, larceny theft was up 88 percent from 2020 as of early December.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mull essentially makes two arguments: She rightly notes the difficulty of finding accurate crime statistics about smash-and-grab crimes; and she claims, while shoplifting may be up from 2020, it is down long-term. Unfortunately, numerous measures say otherwise. New York City had seen \u201cmore than 26,000 shoplifting cases through September alone, the most to that point in the 26 years the numbers have been tracked,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/11\/25\/spike-in-smash-and-grab-attacks-means-bad-news-for-shoppers\/\">according<\/a> to the New York Post. On the other side of the continent, the Los Angeles Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2021-12-15\/organized-retail-theft-crime-rate?_ga=2.165026233.70388755.1641382615-1964586632.1641382615\">admitted<\/a> that statistics show a 56% increase in organized retail crime nationwide between 2015 and 2020, with store owners experiencing \u201closses to organized retail crime at $2.1 billion nationwide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hayes diverted his viewers\u2019 attention to a December 27 NBC News <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/lapd-warn-crime-wave-data-show-theft-robberies-rcna9236\">report<\/a> that tried to downplay the reality of smash-and-grab robberies in Los Angeles: \u201cLAPD warn of crime wave, but data shows theft, robberies down.\u201d Yet 20 paragraphs into the story, NBC admitted, \u201cRobbery is up 5.2 percent this year compared to this point in 2020 \u2026 and theft is up 0.7 percent, recent LAPD data shows.\u201d The story added, \u201cthe department says coordinated thefts are on the rise \u2026 the recent wave has been unprecedented and overwhelmed retail workers and shoppers with a sense of helplessness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Much of the problem in finding accurate statistics stems from the fact that too many perpetrators are never arrested in the first place. (More on this later.) Thus, the only statistics available are those collected by the shopkeepers and their representatives. The National Retail Federation noted in its <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.nrf.com\/sites\/default\/files\/2021-08\/2021%20National%20Retail%20Security%20Survey%20updated.pdf\">annual report<\/a> that their respondents\u2019 biggest complaint since 2015 is the increase in \u201cstore-related violence\u201d and organized retail crime. Half of all stores suffered more shoplifting in 2020 than in 2019, and 57% of stores said they experienced more organized retail crime during the pandemic, with 22% calling it a \u201csignificant increase.\u201d Despite the spike,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The media are on the verge of declaring smash-and-grab robberies \u201cmostly peaceful looting.\u201d In response to viral video footage of mobs demolishing store display cases and calmly walking out with armloads of merchandise, a growing number of media outlets claim the whole phenomenon has been exaggerated by \u201cright-wing media\u201d looking to create a \u201cmoral panic,\u201d &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1197584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1197584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1197584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1197584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1197584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}