It takes 59 seconds to look up crime stats—why don't reporters do it?

If you look at actual numbers, Boudin has done a great job.

Today’s New York Times write-up of the California midterms explains that the recall campaign against Chesa Boudin has tapped into middle class fears about rising crime. Then it just kind of moves on. A reader that skimmed the technically true “objective” news story would come away associating Chesa Boudin and crime.

No effort is made to disrupt the narrative—you know, with actual statistics—that the city is more dangerous and that it’s Boudin’s fault. All those tech and real estate billions went far!

Then just in passing, the Times characterizes Sacramento’s DA, Anne-Marie Schubert, running for Attorney General, as a “moderate” who “prosecuted the Golden State Killer.” I bet Boudin would’ve charged the serial killer, serial rapist and former police officer, Joseph DeAngelo, with a misdemeanor, if that! Schubert’s campaign has largely consisted of reigning in the “chaos” unleashed by Boudin and other progressive DAs.

Beyond that, the Schubert section is as empty of numbers as Boudin’s, which is interesting because—I timed this!—it takes exactly 59 seconds to look up crime data in the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting database to get the following chart, which is that violent crime in Sacramento shot up in 2014, the first year of Schubert’s tenure, then very slightly decreased in the following years, without returning to 2014 levels, and shot up again between 2019 and 2020.