"Here I was trying to bring the company's attention to how we were spreading lies that were contributing to the murders of thousands of black people, "
-Yeah.....don't think that was your primary concern/motivation.
I saved this article in my inbox because I feel it is such an important topic. I have a hard time looking at any of the “news” sources and believing anything they say. And that is bad, because I am not alone. I want news without an agenda. I want both sides of a story told. I want to know that while a reporter cannot always overcome their biases they should at least work to minimize them, and be honest about them.
In the summer of 2020 I looked up statistics, from a left leaning organization, and was surprised to find that there around 1,100 people killed annually by the police. Of that 1,100 around 70% were armed and a threat to the police. So we are going to burn down cities and gut police forces in a country of over 300 million due to around 350 unarmed people being killed by police. That is absurd.
We must be able to openly and honestly discuss the issues without fear of losing our jobs or being cancelled. Do we need to find a way to police better? Yes! Do we need to find a way to increase the trust minority communities have with the police? Yes! But we will NEVER be able to do that if we can’t have honest conversations about where we are as a country. And we MUST be able to trust the news to be impartial, and sadly, we cannot. All to the peril of the people BLM claims to be trying to help.
This is a great example of how poorly educated Americans are when it comes to making basic judgements about the likelihood of things being true or false. We get caught up in specific details that excite certain aspects of our imagination and fail to see when the broader picture doesn't even warrant digging for more information. This is what statistically minded individuals call "Bayesian reasoning" and is the antidote for conspiratorial theorizing.
False ideas about a stolen 2020 Election are a perfect example of this. For the most part, the election results were well in line with predictions - the only real surprises were in Trump's favor, not Joe Biden's. All of the pivotal states which Biden won were states he was either expected to win or at worst were toss-ups. The events of Election night, including the "red mirage", "blue wave", and the fact that we probably weren't going to know the winner on election night (and if we did that winner almost certainly would have been Biden), were all predicted in advance by knowledgeable experts, and people who were watching responsible media outlets were well prepared for the possibilities. The idea that a political party would have risked engineering a fraudulent election which they were about 90% likely to win in the first place doesn't withstand even basic scrutiny. So any details one delves into at that point would need to be overwhelmingly significant to merit attention.
In the case of the BLM movement, the simple and easily verified fact that Black men commit violent crimes at several times the rate of white men should have been enough to set a high bar for evidence of a bias in shootings. But it didn't. Why?
Because in both of these cases we are dealing with deeply ingrained biases on differing sides of our culture war. On the right, people have spent decades being inculcated into an ever-shrinking world of paranoid anti-institutionalism propagated by entertainment-driven right-wing media personalities and outlets.
On the left, roughly that same amount of time has been spent under the crushing influence of white guilt, training our minds to instinctively look away from any demographic statistics which might paint a minority group in an unflattering light. As such, I strongly suspect that many progressives are actually unaware of statistics on black crime, assuming that they are either racist stereotypes or the result of bias in arrests and convictions. When in fact - Bayesian reasoning applies here as well - they are pretty much what one would expect given the relative rates of poverty in which blacks are raised.
Thank you for this article. I am heartbroken by the destruction that Black people face in their communities and I am angered by the duplicity of BLM, the movement, and the media. It’s time to birth a new movement: ALL Black Lives Matter. I would hope this new movement is based on accurate data and espouses policies that protect all black lives, especially the innocent lives trapped in urban areas. I also hope this is accomplished without promoting divisiveness and hatred, as does BLM. BLM is especially intolerant towards anyone that disagrees with their policies and towards Jewish people who love Black people and who love Israel.
I'd like to see what he posted. With a salary like that this thinking man seemed to be strangely isolated from the top men and women in his company. Being fired by HR seems odd to me as well. But then I don't make $350,000 a year.
This is a fascinating and very timely article. There's a lot in that seems right to me. That said, there's also one part where I'm not sure I follow the reasoning. I'm not a statistician, so it's possible I'm missing something that will seem obvious to others.
The author writes:
"According to calculations (published by Patrick Frey, Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County) based on FBI data, black Americans account for 37 percent of those who murder police officers, and 34 percent of the unarmed suspects killed by police. Meanwhile, whites make up 42.7 percent of cop killers and 42 percent of the unarmed suspects shot by police—meaning whites are killed by police at a 7 percent higher rate than blacks."
My question is, What does the percentage of police murdered by black Americans tell us about the percentage of _unarmed_ black Americans killed by police? In cases where the person shot is unarmed, why wouldn't the demographic base rate be more relevant?
There may be a good answer to this question. At any rate, I think it would be helpful to spell that part out more fully. (The next paragraph, with the 70% figure, would also be easier to process if the figures were provided.)
I hope this doesn't sound like a nitpick. I think this set of issues needs to be explored and set out as clearly as possible.
A sad commentary on our.public media. The Reuters leadership is sanctioning the destruction of a man's career, because he attempted to communicate the truth internally within his.organization, not.publicly. I assume the attempted destruction of his career is the result.of poorly educated twenty some things and thirtysomethings who currently infest all types.of organizatioms. I am.happy that I.am seventysomething retiree. I sympathize with all.those compelled.tomendure.today's toxicnwork.environment.
Zac, facts caused me to leave the Democrat Party, become an independent, and eventually a Republican. Having been raised in a Democrat household I was so brainwashed against Republicans that it was really a struggle. But when I finally let down my defenses and allowed myself to be around other women who were Republican, I realized I was home. It takes truly being honest and spending a great deal of time doing a thorough fact checking to understand that the Republicans were the original non-racists and they utterly believe in freedom of speech and thought.
No political party is perfect, including the Republican Party, but the first thing one needs to do when they realize they are in a deep hole is to stop digging. So yes, be brave in your research, be courageous enough to see and tell the truth. Although losing a $350,000 a year job is a hell of a jolt, the truth will set you free - and freedom is what it is all about in this country. Now... start your own business and you won't have to answer to a bunch of leftist wackos. It is probably as if you've been in the Matrix and you've broken loose from your previous reality. Don't be surprised that your mind keeps having to adjust as you move forward through this experience.
Zac, Thank you for sharing your story and for your excellent work regarding BLM’s claims regarding police violence against Blacks. It took great courage. Like you, I believe the greatest tragedy is the 10,000 Black people who are murdered each year in the US. I hope that your work will help us focus more on that issue which would save lives.
The most important article I have read this year and the saddest. goo luck. being honest in a sea of liars must be terrible. county yourself lucky to have risen from the muck. as was once said. let all the poisons that .lurk in the mud hatch out
Zac, why don't you go into some detail about what individuals did and specifically name names?People should be held accountable for heinous acts, to admonish you because you had another viewpoint, one supported by facts, that's crazy.
These irrational cancel culture types should be identified, so they are held accountable and their shaming should show the light to others, to stay away from obvious reprehensible actions, if for no other reason that you will be outed.
I don't believe this is cancel culture, it's more that people would called out for hurting someone else through acting shamefully. If their actions are not deemed to be wrong, they have nothing to worry about.
So depressing. I’m a former journalist, and to see that an outfit like Thomsen Reuters is determined to ignore the truth -- from a guy making $350K to crunch data! -- to maintain the BLM narrative is maddening. I genuinely fear the Republic. One can only hope more and more people find sites like Common Sense for balanced, objective reporting.
"Here I was trying to bring the company's attention to how we were spreading lies that were contributing to the murders of thousands of black people, "
-Yeah.....don't think that was your primary concern/motivation.
A horde isn't capable of intellectual courage, just blunt trauma. Onward, sir! Good luck in getting the courts to uncover the truth.
A horde isn't capable of intellectual courage, just blunt trauma. Onward, sir! Good luck in getting the courts to uncover the truth.
You have fought the good fight. I do pray you find meaningful work. Thank you for being a person of conscience
I saved this article in my inbox because I feel it is such an important topic. I have a hard time looking at any of the “news” sources and believing anything they say. And that is bad, because I am not alone. I want news without an agenda. I want both sides of a story told. I want to know that while a reporter cannot always overcome their biases they should at least work to minimize them, and be honest about them.
In the summer of 2020 I looked up statistics, from a left leaning organization, and was surprised to find that there around 1,100 people killed annually by the police. Of that 1,100 around 70% were armed and a threat to the police. So we are going to burn down cities and gut police forces in a country of over 300 million due to around 350 unarmed people being killed by police. That is absurd.
We must be able to openly and honestly discuss the issues without fear of losing our jobs or being cancelled. Do we need to find a way to police better? Yes! Do we need to find a way to increase the trust minority communities have with the police? Yes! But we will NEVER be able to do that if we can’t have honest conversations about where we are as a country. And we MUST be able to trust the news to be impartial, and sadly, we cannot. All to the peril of the people BLM claims to be trying to help.
This should be required reading for all US citizens. Wonderful job articulating an experience shared by so many. This insanity has to stop.
This is a great example of how poorly educated Americans are when it comes to making basic judgements about the likelihood of things being true or false. We get caught up in specific details that excite certain aspects of our imagination and fail to see when the broader picture doesn't even warrant digging for more information. This is what statistically minded individuals call "Bayesian reasoning" and is the antidote for conspiratorial theorizing.
False ideas about a stolen 2020 Election are a perfect example of this. For the most part, the election results were well in line with predictions - the only real surprises were in Trump's favor, not Joe Biden's. All of the pivotal states which Biden won were states he was either expected to win or at worst were toss-ups. The events of Election night, including the "red mirage", "blue wave", and the fact that we probably weren't going to know the winner on election night (and if we did that winner almost certainly would have been Biden), were all predicted in advance by knowledgeable experts, and people who were watching responsible media outlets were well prepared for the possibilities. The idea that a political party would have risked engineering a fraudulent election which they were about 90% likely to win in the first place doesn't withstand even basic scrutiny. So any details one delves into at that point would need to be overwhelmingly significant to merit attention.
In the case of the BLM movement, the simple and easily verified fact that Black men commit violent crimes at several times the rate of white men should have been enough to set a high bar for evidence of a bias in shootings. But it didn't. Why?
Because in both of these cases we are dealing with deeply ingrained biases on differing sides of our culture war. On the right, people have spent decades being inculcated into an ever-shrinking world of paranoid anti-institutionalism propagated by entertainment-driven right-wing media personalities and outlets.
On the left, roughly that same amount of time has been spent under the crushing influence of white guilt, training our minds to instinctively look away from any demographic statistics which might paint a minority group in an unflattering light. As such, I strongly suspect that many progressives are actually unaware of statistics on black crime, assuming that they are either racist stereotypes or the result of bias in arrests and convictions. When in fact - Bayesian reasoning applies here as well - they are pretty much what one would expect given the relative rates of poverty in which blacks are raised.
Thank you for this article. I am heartbroken by the destruction that Black people face in their communities and I am angered by the duplicity of BLM, the movement, and the media. It’s time to birth a new movement: ALL Black Lives Matter. I would hope this new movement is based on accurate data and espouses policies that protect all black lives, especially the innocent lives trapped in urban areas. I also hope this is accomplished without promoting divisiveness and hatred, as does BLM. BLM is especially intolerant towards anyone that disagrees with their policies and towards Jewish people who love Black people and who love Israel.
I'd like to see what he posted. With a salary like that this thinking man seemed to be strangely isolated from the top men and women in his company. Being fired by HR seems odd to me as well. But then I don't make $350,000 a year.
This is a fascinating and very timely article. There's a lot in that seems right to me. That said, there's also one part where I'm not sure I follow the reasoning. I'm not a statistician, so it's possible I'm missing something that will seem obvious to others.
The author writes:
"According to calculations (published by Patrick Frey, Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County) based on FBI data, black Americans account for 37 percent of those who murder police officers, and 34 percent of the unarmed suspects killed by police. Meanwhile, whites make up 42.7 percent of cop killers and 42 percent of the unarmed suspects shot by police—meaning whites are killed by police at a 7 percent higher rate than blacks."
My question is, What does the percentage of police murdered by black Americans tell us about the percentage of _unarmed_ black Americans killed by police? In cases where the person shot is unarmed, why wouldn't the demographic base rate be more relevant?
There may be a good answer to this question. At any rate, I think it would be helpful to spell that part out more fully. (The next paragraph, with the 70% figure, would also be easier to process if the figures were provided.)
I hope this doesn't sound like a nitpick. I think this set of issues needs to be explored and set out as clearly as possible.
A sad commentary on our.public media. The Reuters leadership is sanctioning the destruction of a man's career, because he attempted to communicate the truth internally within his.organization, not.publicly. I assume the attempted destruction of his career is the result.of poorly educated twenty some things and thirtysomethings who currently infest all types.of organizatioms. I am.happy that I.am seventysomething retiree. I sympathize with all.those compelled.tomendure.today's toxicnwork.environment.
Zac, facts caused me to leave the Democrat Party, become an independent, and eventually a Republican. Having been raised in a Democrat household I was so brainwashed against Republicans that it was really a struggle. But when I finally let down my defenses and allowed myself to be around other women who were Republican, I realized I was home. It takes truly being honest and spending a great deal of time doing a thorough fact checking to understand that the Republicans were the original non-racists and they utterly believe in freedom of speech and thought.
No political party is perfect, including the Republican Party, but the first thing one needs to do when they realize they are in a deep hole is to stop digging. So yes, be brave in your research, be courageous enough to see and tell the truth. Although losing a $350,000 a year job is a hell of a jolt, the truth will set you free - and freedom is what it is all about in this country. Now... start your own business and you won't have to answer to a bunch of leftist wackos. It is probably as if you've been in the Matrix and you've broken loose from your previous reality. Don't be surprised that your mind keeps having to adjust as you move forward through this experience.
Zac, Thank you for sharing your story and for your excellent work regarding BLM’s claims regarding police violence against Blacks. It took great courage. Like you, I believe the greatest tragedy is the 10,000 Black people who are murdered each year in the US. I hope that your work will help us focus more on that issue which would save lives.
The most important article I have read this year and the saddest. goo luck. being honest in a sea of liars must be terrible. county yourself lucky to have risen from the muck. as was once said. let all the poisons that .lurk in the mud hatch out
Zac, why don't you go into some detail about what individuals did and specifically name names?People should be held accountable for heinous acts, to admonish you because you had another viewpoint, one supported by facts, that's crazy.
These irrational cancel culture types should be identified, so they are held accountable and their shaming should show the light to others, to stay away from obvious reprehensible actions, if for no other reason that you will be outed.
I don't believe this is cancel culture, it's more that people would called out for hurting someone else through acting shamefully. If their actions are not deemed to be wrong, they have nothing to worry about.
So depressing. I’m a former journalist, and to see that an outfit like Thomsen Reuters is determined to ignore the truth -- from a guy making $350K to crunch data! -- to maintain the BLM narrative is maddening. I genuinely fear the Republic. One can only hope more and more people find sites like Common Sense for balanced, objective reporting.