Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 7:38 PM
Opinion
By Stephanie Ramage

THE AJC MISLEADS AGAIN ON CRIME, THE POLICE, AND NOW THE TAX HIKE

The Atlanta Journal Constitution, the same paper that stands behind its judgment that Atlanta's crime problem is really a matter of “the perception of crime" has this week introduced two other bizarre twists on covering the news.

Ending the public safety furloughs, reports AJC writer Eric Stirgus, will make it “feel like there are more police officers and firefighters on the job.” http://www.ajc.com/falcons/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/06/29/atlanta_property_tax_increase.html

So, those of you who perceived that thugs had broken into your homes and stolen your stuff, and who subsequently thought that putting the cops back to work full time would help keep that from happening again, might be surprised to learn that you will only “feel” as though there are more police on the streets.

How did “feel” find its way into the lead of what was supposed to be a news story about something as straightforward as a vote on a tax hike that would result in the end of police furloughs?

How does a reporter at what is supposed to be a major newspaper get away with that kind of garbage? The fact of the matter is the tax hike will restore Atlanta’s always understaffed police force to fulltime status, something residents have not seen since Dec. 25, 2008 when Mayor Franklin instituted furloughs. There really will be more cops on the street than we’ve seen for the past six months. That lack of police presence more than anything else is to blame for the brazen crime Atlantans have seen ever since. The dynamic is simple—a large, visible police force, staffed well enough to allow for real neighborhood policing, is the strongest deterrent to crime. In the absence of seeing plenty of cops around, criminals feel emboldened and their crimes become brazen.

So which will you trust? Your “perception” of crime or your “feeling” that there are more cops on the street? Whatever you do, don’t trust the AJC.

The AJC is a paper so far past its glory days and so far into senile decrepitude that it can no longer distinguish between the reality of Atlanta and the image of Atlanta it conjures up with its own words.  Not only does it report on “perceptions of crime” as though the entire population has gone mad; not only does it bait Kyle Keyser, founder of Atlantans Together Against Crime into an interview that turns out to be writer Rosalind Bentley’s unprofessional venting of her own paper’s insecurity on the guy who most personifies the residents’ fight against crime http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2009/05/24/atlanta_crime.html (“You’re just a little crime magnet”? Are you a journalist, Rosalind? Because that looks alarmingly like an attempt to make the point that Keyser was projecting his own perception onto Atlanta’s crime situation, and if you’re a journalist, you should have just come right out and asked him if that were a possibility); not only does the AJC, with no sense of irony, report simultaneously on crime in Midtown and how Atlanta’s crime is only a “perception,” but now it has taken to simply leaving out the parts of the news that don’t support its editorial agenda.

The furloughs have critically impacted public safety in Atlanta, they have deeply bruised the confidence of residents, they have worn down the fortitude of the police officers. One—the furloughs—has everything to do with the other—crime, yet when the AJC published a story on rampant crime in the Home Park area in Monday’s paper, http://www.ajc.com/falcons/content/metro/atlanta/stories/2009/06/29/atlanta_property_tax_increase.html reporter Ernie Suggs referred to David Baker, “who is a member of the homeowners association, said folks are growing increasingly frustrated with the APD” without ever explaining that there have been furloughs that have cut police coverage since last December.

Suggs is better than that. I choose to believe that it was the notoriously cavalier editors at the AJC who are to blame for him quoting Baker without giving adequate context:

“There is a constant state of tension here. On top of that, the city council just voted to raise my property taxes. I am not getting what I am paying for. I have no faith in Atlanta to provide for the welfare of our citizens,” Baker told the AJC. There was no mention whatsoever that the tax hike the council passed June 29 will restore police to full time status, thereby more effectively addressing crime. That should have been explained in the next sentence, and then there could have been a response to that from Baker, who, for all I know, would oppose the tax hike anyway. But, disturbingly, there was simply no mention of the police force’s diminished presence since last December, at all.

I have a some questions for editor Julia Wallace and the other powers that be at the AJC, but most especially for Wallace, who was heralded by the American Society of News Editors as “working to reinvent the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to reflect the changing nature of the city” when she made her entrance there in 2002.  

1. How is it that an actual end to furloughs, a restoration of 10 percent of the force, amounts to only a “feeling” of having more cops on the streets? Their time was cut by 10 percent (a 10 percent pay cut under furloughs means the cops don't go into work as much) so give them that back, and you have them working more hours than was the case during the furloughs. More cops on the streets, see?

2. How is it that you can in all seriousness report on crime and the tax hike in the same story and never mention how the hike enables an end to the police furloughs which have contributed to a rise in property crimes?

3. How is it that you can seriously imagine that you can save your hemorrhaging paper with such news coverage? You bullied a community organizer who had the courage to speak out against crime and the furloughs. You belittled the citizens who fell prey to crime, shrugging them off as if they were mentally ill. You reported on crime and taxes in the same story without ever referring to the central issue of police furloughs. Why would anyone want to advertise in your paper or subscribe to it? For whom are you writing?

If they paint the reality of it all, it will depress most of the readers to the point that they realize how inept things are run here and decide to take their money, AKA taxes, elsewhere. Make the City safe, meaning more and better paid Officers, and watch the benefits the City will reap multiply exponentially. How hard is that to understand?!?! Seems not only the obvious, but also the right thing to do for the hard working citizens who call Atlanta home. Demand more from your "leaders"! Unless of course you like coming home to find your house broken into, then waking up in the morning to find your car broken into or stolen, and then being harassed half to death by homeless people when you have to walk to the closest MARTA station to get to work, where you may soon be paying more for your ride there too!

rob
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 7:59 PM

They, the media, are probably more responsible for the perpetuation of misguided policies on crime than even academics. Pro-criminal, anti-victim biases have been splattered across the pages of the AJC for as long as I can remember. Remember Tom Teepen? He poured his heart into expressing raw contempt for crime victims, when he wasn't busily bleeding it for society's worst predators. Mainstream journalism is an industry that has settled into such habits for so long that I don't think it can be cured or saved. That interview with Kyle was simply appalling. How low-rent-Deborah-Solomon. How embarrassing.

On the other hand, I think several reporters (not columnists) at the AJC, and elsewhere, have begun to report on crime differently than the past. I agree that much of the problem probably lies with the editors: when you have an institution immersed in an ideology, it is the acolytes who move up the food chain.

Tina
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 10:08 AM