• jadero
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    8 months ago

    I didn’t see any “shit journalism.” I saw many references to external sources, including some from police forces themselves. That argues against confirmation bias, the more general bias that what doesn’t meet expectations is more likely to get reported, and mere sensationalism.

    Obviously, that does not mean that there was no selection bias in the choice of references. If you have alternative sources, use them or point us in the right direction so we can find them.

    When recognizing that someone seems to be generalizing, it’s worth asking whether that’s because it is based on underlying facts or is just in service of an ulterior motive. My take (which may be just confirmation bias) is that the underlying facts argue in favour of some generalization.

    Not all police are bad and neither are all departments and forces. But there are too many clear cases of bad behaviour to just ignore the possibility that there really is a general problem that must be dealt with.