The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper for years has tried to turn the public against the police. Their methodology is very clear; it consists of 5 steps that every article about cops adopts. For the latest example, consider this front-page story in the June 3 edition.
It’s about the shooting of two knife-wielding men by S.F.P.D. officers on May 19; the men were fighting each other; both were killed by the cops. Because the incident occurred so recently, investigations are not yet complete. But that isn’t stopping the Chronicle’s editors and writers, who are wildly anti-cop, from portraying it as a debacle due to police misconduct. They want to rile readers up against the police. Here are the 5 easy steps.
1. Write a provocative headline that telegraphs to readers that the cops did something wrong. In this case, the headline—Experts troubled by police tactics in fatal shooting—immediately informs readers that the cops have done something “troubling.” Even if the person doesn’t read the full article, she has had implanted in her brain, “There they go again: S.F.P.D. did something bad.” If that reader has been exposed to the Chronicle’s bias over and over again, she will automatically assume that S.F.P.D. consists of gun-crazy thugs, anxious to kill people of color.
2. Assure readers that you, the reporter, are entirely neutral; you’re just getting your information from “experts.” That gets you off the hook: reporters aren’t supposed to write about their own opinions, so by citing “experts,” you let readers know you’re just a hard-working investigative journalist reporting the facts. In this case, the word “experts” appears both in the headline and in the first two words of the article: “Policing experts who viewed…” etc. You have now hammered home to your readers that, no matter how the investigation turns out, the “experts” will tell you all you need to know, namely, these cops blew it.
3. Now, you, the reporter, have to find your “experts.” No problem; you have your favorite experts, who can be depended to tell you what you want to hear. If they don’t--if they tell you the cops did everything by the book--you don’t use their quotes in your article. Eventually, you, the reporter, find three experts who say the cops misbehaved. That’s enough; three gives the appearance of consensus. Of course, these experts have no idea what actually happened, except for your description of the event. From thousands of miles away, they accuse the cops of acting too quickly, or not thinking things though, or not responding differently, or unnecessarily provoking violence. This armchair quarterbacking is harmless when applied to football games, but dangerous when it fosters mistrust of the police; and it’s egregious when it comes from a media that’s supposed to be neutral.
4. Continue the negative headline on the “jump” page, which is when a front-page article is continued further in the paper. Here, the second headline is “Tactics criticized in shooting.” Just in case the reader didn’t grok it from the main headline, she’s reminded a second time that the cops did something terrible.
5. Now that you’ve quoted the “experts” and persuaded readers that the cops misbehaved, admit—after hundreds of words—that in fact the cops did nothing wrong! Here’s the bullet sentence, buried so far down in the story on the jump page, it might be in Forest Lawn: “Still, [one expert] said, he expects authorities to determine the shooting was justified and not file criminal charges against the officers.” And there you have it: the cops did nothing wrong. It was a routine case, the kind that happens every day across the country: police doing their jobs under conditions of extreme risk and peril in which, sometimes, perps get killed. Which leads to the question: Why write the damned article in the first place? Well, we know the answer: It’s the San Francisco Chronicle. If you can throw shade on the police, do it by any means necessary. And thus continues the sad demise of a once great newspaper.
Look: If armed thugs tried to invade the Chronicle’s offices on Fifth Street, the editors (and the Hearsts, who own the paper) would be the first to demand that S.F. cops rush to the scene and protect them. Wouldn’t it be amusing if the Chief of Police told them, “If you think we’re so horrible, why don’t you call someone else to rescue you?” Of course, S.F.P.D. would never do that, because they’re honorable. The San Francisco Chronicle isn’t.
Steve Heimoff