Siena College polling out Wednesday shows that New Yorkers are absolutely terrified about rising crime, with fully 70% reporting that they’re “very” or “somewhat” worried about being victimized.
Almost 10% say they’ve been physically assaulted or robbed in just the last year.
Yet Mayor Adams has found the real culprit behind this public “perception” of rising danger and menace on the streets.
No, not your friendly neighborhood shoplifter. Not the aggressive panhandler in the subway or the knife-wielding maniac, like the one screaming wildly in Times Square Wednesday morning.
The real problem, according to the mayor? The media.
“Let’s think about it for a moment, how do [New Yorkers] start their day,” Adams asked rhetorically. “They start their day picking up the news, the morning papers, they sit down, and they see some of the most horrific events that may happen throughout the previous day.”
This media manipulation, says Mayor Swagger, plays with and distorts the “psyche” of New Yorkers — who are so innocent and feeble-minded, it seems, they can’t distinguish between the violent stories they read in the papers and see with their own eyes on the streets and the peaceful, loving (fake) reality he’d rather they thought exists.
Who knew that the famously skeptical denizens of the Big Apple were so naïve?
Hizzoner’s go-to target
The media is a favorite punching bag for Adams, who lashes out at reporters whenever he feels beleaguered.
Asked about his penchant for nightclubbing, and who pays for it, he lambasted The New York Times for daring to question him on it. It was “silly” and disrespectful to ask him to show “receipts.”
He also mocked reporters and said they were “afraid” to go to the South Bronx where he (a macho former cop) likes to “hang out with the boys.”
Adams isn’t the only local pol who deflects from real issues by blaming the media.
Plenty of other defenders of the Defund the Police agenda and crime-denialists like to play “kill the messenger” when it comes to even straight reporting about murder and violence.
Patronizing pushback
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, tweeting early and often from the confines of the federal garrison where he lives protected by federal soldiers, constantly inveighs against media “fear-mongering” whenever it reports on some savage crime.
According to Williams, “sometimes folks are safe but don’t feel safe, and that can be just as dangerous in pushing policies that will harm people.”
In other words, don’t use the evidence of your own eyes and your own street-sense to decide whether or not you are “safe.”
Thinking that the streets are dangerous could lead to “policies that will harm people.”
Which policies? You know, like proactive policing, arresting criminals and prosecuting them instead of letting them go.
Adams isn’t pro-Defund, and he favors some reasonable policies regarding public safety.
And, yes, murders this year, through Sunday, have dropped about 8% over the same period last year.
But they’re still up troublingly over a few years ago.
As, as important, Adams hasn’t restored a visible sense of order on the city’s streets, with crazies, druggies and assorted homeless noticeable practically everywhere.
Hizzoner finds the press an all-too-easy target to blame for his own failures.
Memo to City Hall: New Yorkers aren’t stupid.
We are close enough to the realities of our streets to make up our own minds about whether crime and disorder are problems.
We don’t need to consult the weather report to know it’s going to be hot in July, and we don’t rely on newspapers or television to let us know to watch our backs on muggy nights.
Seth Barron is managing editor of The American Mind and author of “The Last Days of New York.”