Did you know violent crime is down? Not if you’re watching right-wing media

The FBI on Monday reported that violent crime fell across the US last year, including the steepest annual decline in murders in decades. But the report was almost entirely ignored by right-wing media outlets, which have pushed the false narrative that crime is surging under President Joe Biden.

The FBI on Monday reported that violent crime dropped across the US last year, registering the steepest annual decline in murders in decades. But the report was almost entirely ignored by right-wing media outlets, which have pushed a false narrative that crime is surging under President Joe Biden. The FBI data, which drew from 16,334 law enforcement agencies across the country, found that murder and non-negligent manslaughter fell almost 12% year over year, while the number of rapes fell by more than 9%. Overall crime fell by 3% and property crime fell by 2.4%. The routine release of FBI data comes just weeks before a high-stakes presidential election in which perceptions of crime and safety have become a key political flashpoint. Former President Donald Trump has frequently told bleak and largely bogus stories about violence, claiming “our crime rate’s going through the roof” and “we have crime-ridden cities like we’ve never seen before.” CNN’s fact-checks have shown these claims to be false. The FBI’s data on Monday affirmed those fact checks and was widely reported by news organizations, including CNN, The Associated Press, NBC and The New York Times. But it was met with a virtual blackout by pro-Trump media outlets. The right’s dominant media outlet, Fox News, mentioned the FBI data just once on its air Monday, with “Special Report with Bret Baier,” devoting 28 seconds to the subject, according to TVEyes database searches. During the segment, Baier told viewers, “critics say the report is not accurate because it does not include big cities,” a false claim promoted by Elon Musk and other Trump supporters on social media.