Topic: CNSNews.com
As we detailed last year, CNSNews.com loves to invoke crime in big cities -- and particularly in Chicago -- as a way to accuse non-right-wing politicians and prosecutors of being purportedly "soft on crime." It did so last summer in an article popsted just a week after we posted our analysis of its highly selective crime coverage, with the headline "Chicago Weekend: 77 People Shot, 5 Dead." Craig Bannister followed a couple weeks later in a July 2021 article, writing that "Homicides and gang violence are so out of control in Chicago that the city needs federal and state help, political commentator and Journalist Geraldo Rivera said Monday," adding reports from another biased source: "As Fox News reported Monday, at least 40 people were shot, 11 fatally, in Chicago over the weekend."
CNS then got bored with the issue for a while, until Bannister located a Republican politician who found it useful in an April 26 article:
“We’re going backwards here on crime, general,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland during Monday's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.
Using rampant killings in Chicago as an example, Sen. Kennedy pressed Garland on his failure to recommend a policy of “stop, question and frisk” to state and local law enforcement and officials:
[...]
Garland replied by saying the federal government doesn’t get involved in policing at the state and local levels:
Bannister then hyped how Kennedy interrupted Garland to demand a different answer then the accurate one he gave.
For a May 27 article, Bannister found some Chicago crime he apparently approved of, since the victims were members of the media that CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, exists to heap hatred upon:
As Fox 32’s “Good Day Chicago” was in the middle of a live broadcast Thursday, about the steep rise in gun violence in the city, a pedestrian walked on-camera and pointed what appears to be a gun at the camera, crew and reporter.
“Around 7 a.m., at the corner of Clark and Hubbard, while our reporter was in the middle of a live report about Chicago gun violence, a man walked up and pointed what appeared to be a firearm at our crew,” Fox 32 reports.
“Good Day Chicago’s” Joanie Lum was reporting on the 66% surge in shooting incidents in the city from 2019 to 2021 when the unidentified man came up from behind and, apparently, pointed a gun.
After skipping down the sidewalk, the man then stops and points the object in his hand at something across the street, before continuing on.
Melanie Arter sent more love Fox News' way in a June 3 article:
When asked Thursday what gun laws would have prevented 47 people from being shot in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre cited red flag laws, which allow the police or family members to petition the court to take away guns from someone deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
“You got Chicago, for example. They already have plenty of very strict gun laws — some of the strictest in the country. Forty-seven people shot there over the Memorial Day weekend. Nine of them died. So, which law would have prevented any of that? Do we think that all these people in Chicago who are shooting each other are legally buying their guns?” Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy asked.
Arter didn't explain her impication that Jean-Pierre is wrong.
The worlds of Fox News and Chicago crime merged again in a July 7 article by intern Stephanie Samsel:
Following the murder of his younger brother in Chicago in June, Fox News political analyst Gianno Caldwell pleaded for justice amidst weekly reports of violence, stating, “Living in Chicago should not come with a death warrant.”
Caldwell condemned the city’s “soft-on-crime policies” and called for reversing some of them, a move he told Fox News “could have prevented [his] brother’s death.”
Samsel didn't fact-check anything Caldwell said.
Another intern, Lucy Collins, crannked out a summer of weekend crime in Chicago for an Aug. 8 article:
Fifty-four people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, leaving eight dead and 46 wounded. Police Superintendent David Brown acknowledged the spike in violent crime and said, “Every neighborhood is seeking more and more police officers right now.”
Brown has pledged increased police presence in Chicago’s public transportation system but has faced criticism for a recent policy change that some claim will “handcuff” the police. There have been 399 homicides in Chicago so far in 2022.
Collins did eventually get round to explaining that policy:
Superintendent Brown faced criticism earlier this summer, when his department released a new policy that limits when police officers are allowed to engage in foot pursuits. The new policy requires that the chase only be done “if they believe a person is committing or is about to commit a felony, a Class A misdemeanor such as domestic battery, or a serious traffic offense that could risk injuring others, such as drunken driving or street racing.”
This policy was enacted a year after two Chicago police chases ended in the deaths of a 13-year-old suspect and a 22-year-old, both of whom were fleeing from police and were armed.
Collins went on to repeat Caldwell's criticism of purportedly "soft on crime" Chicago officials, without explaining how it's "soft on crime" to have a policy against a suspect for a minor offense without a trial.
