On July 19, the Washington Post Editorial Board published an impassioned column calling for an aggressive national response to organized retail crime (ORC). The Editorial Board described ORC as "the term security specialists use to distinguish planned, large-scale stealing to supply the black market from individual cases of the 'five-fingered discount.'" It stressed that evidence that ORC was a growing problem "comes not only from viral videos depicting masked people smashing display cases and dumping the contents into large bags" but also "data."
What a con! And what great research and reporting! This is a very disturbing example of myth-making. It's bought and paid for disinformation. AI will make it orders of magnitude worse, I fear.
The worst part for me about this disinformative practices of the WaPo editorial board is that they undermine the integrity of the publication as a whole, such that it's hard to appreciate the legitimate reporting where it exists. It's a shame.
Thanks Judd. Since I started a part time gig last March at a big retail box store, I can personally say that the reason for shrink have little to do with ORC. Inventory procedures not being followed (check in, check out) most likely is a big part. Our info will show we have a quantity, but no one knows it's location. It was checked in but then placed somewhere in the vast store. We then are expected to search for it for weeks before loss declaration. I consider that time theft as it prevents workers from providing customer service and a time waster for customers trying to purchase a product that shows on the web app we have.
Then there is self check out. 1 or 2 people monitoring multiple registers. Wise thieves can easily plan to be in the store at break times when there are fewer employees to monitor. This makes it much easier for someone to side up, act like they are scanning, bag a product and walk out. Self check outs are designed to decrease personnel needs, not to increase profit. Companies can then write off their losses and blame employees from the loss as well.
I cancelled my WaPo subscription when they started censoring negative responses to right-wing “opinion” editorials. Conglomerate ownership of media makes for faux journalism.I quit the NYTimes after they helped to elect tRump in 2016, along with CNN, et al. Money talks, for sure, but I don’t have to pay to read right-wing drivel.
Thank you Judd and team--as we can see, most journalists, politicians, and successful newspapers with nationwide readership do not bother to research and fact check. It's SO easy to find the bad guys and despise them enough to blame them and kill them! Senator Grassley seems to never tell the truth--does he have dementia? Cortez Masto should read this and quickly disassociate herself from Grassley. Newsome, if he wants a future of power with liberal admiration must tread carefully because liberals read and pay attention to what is going on at the source level.
What's the best way to hide the fact that your business is doing poorly? Blame it on someone else, of course. And if that "someone else" is poor and, maybe, non-white, what a great story!
I never thought large-scale retail theft was causing these business losses - it defied common sense. I have to believe that many in the media knew it was BS and published anyway.
Thanks again for bringing this story into the light and exposing these false claims and their motivations for those lies. We need more and more to expose organized and not so organized manipulators and their enablers. But does the greater public get the message or can they even be bothered once the sound bites have evaded their brains?
My recollection is that Popular Information was on top of this story months ago. Of course, facts are no match for video that can be played in an endless loop on Fox. And local news, for that matter.
My NYC resident son wonders why the only stores that keep merchandise under lock and key are the national chains. Corner bodegas and other Mom and Pop businesses don't seem to worry about shoplifting much, if at all.
This kind of "reporting" by WaPo is why I cancelled by subscription this month. It's becoming increasingly clear that their view of truth is ever more subjective. I will have to rely on publications such as Popular Information (thank you Judd - you are an American hero!), Letters from an American, and to some degree, Reuters. There are some other sources, but all viewed with caution and salt these days.
Thank you, Popular Information, for you "outing" the lies of retail giants who don't want to admit they made mistakes of their own. Trimmed back Target stores just didn't work in some places. Ordering on line cut a lot of shopping and not much of that was theft. IN THE MEANTIME, the right wing is clamoring for more police and the failure of the left to protect people.
This is a very important article. It points to the value of lying. Yet in a world of viral videos it should be recognized that the fear and discomfort people experience doesn’t come from statistics. It comes from imagining you will be there or you will have your own place attacked in the same way. That cannot be ignored. If it is, demagogues will take up the issue. We cannot ignore how people feel, nor should we blame it all on demagogues, mistakes or outright lies.
When a newspaper publishes something that has not been fact checked, it lends credence to assertions that other of its articles are "fake news", which plays into the hands of the liars like TFG.
What a con! And what great research and reporting! This is a very disturbing example of myth-making. It's bought and paid for disinformation. AI will make it orders of magnitude worse, I fear.
Re WAPO; so what happened to “Democracy dies in Darkness”.
The worst part for me about this disinformative practices of the WaPo editorial board is that they undermine the integrity of the publication as a whole, such that it's hard to appreciate the legitimate reporting where it exists. It's a shame.
Thanks Judd. Since I started a part time gig last March at a big retail box store, I can personally say that the reason for shrink have little to do with ORC. Inventory procedures not being followed (check in, check out) most likely is a big part. Our info will show we have a quantity, but no one knows it's location. It was checked in but then placed somewhere in the vast store. We then are expected to search for it for weeks before loss declaration. I consider that time theft as it prevents workers from providing customer service and a time waster for customers trying to purchase a product that shows on the web app we have.
Then there is self check out. 1 or 2 people monitoring multiple registers. Wise thieves can easily plan to be in the store at break times when there are fewer employees to monitor. This makes it much easier for someone to side up, act like they are scanning, bag a product and walk out. Self check outs are designed to decrease personnel needs, not to increase profit. Companies can then write off their losses and blame employees from the loss as well.
"If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store," Trump said in October."
Ah Mssr. Trump. May we shoot you NOW?
I cancelled my WaPo subscription when they started censoring negative responses to right-wing “opinion” editorials. Conglomerate ownership of media makes for faux journalism.I quit the NYTimes after they helped to elect tRump in 2016, along with CNN, et al. Money talks, for sure, but I don’t have to pay to read right-wing drivel.
Thank you Judd and team--as we can see, most journalists, politicians, and successful newspapers with nationwide readership do not bother to research and fact check. It's SO easy to find the bad guys and despise them enough to blame them and kill them! Senator Grassley seems to never tell the truth--does he have dementia? Cortez Masto should read this and quickly disassociate herself from Grassley. Newsome, if he wants a future of power with liberal admiration must tread carefully because liberals read and pay attention to what is going on at the source level.
Amazing reporting. Let's see who picks up this story and corrects the record.
What's the best way to hide the fact that your business is doing poorly? Blame it on someone else, of course. And if that "someone else" is poor and, maybe, non-white, what a great story!
I never thought large-scale retail theft was causing these business losses - it defied common sense. I have to believe that many in the media knew it was BS and published anyway.
Thanks again for bringing this story into the light and exposing these false claims and their motivations for those lies. We need more and more to expose organized and not so organized manipulators and their enablers. But does the greater public get the message or can they even be bothered once the sound bites have evaded their brains?
My recollection is that Popular Information was on top of this story months ago. Of course, facts are no match for video that can be played in an endless loop on Fox. And local news, for that matter.
My NYC resident son wonders why the only stores that keep merchandise under lock and key are the national chains. Corner bodegas and other Mom and Pop businesses don't seem to worry about shoplifting much, if at all.
This kind of "reporting" by WaPo is why I cancelled by subscription this month. It's becoming increasingly clear that their view of truth is ever more subjective. I will have to rely on publications such as Popular Information (thank you Judd - you are an American hero!), Letters from an American, and to some degree, Reuters. There are some other sources, but all viewed with caution and salt these days.
Thank you, Popular Information, for you "outing" the lies of retail giants who don't want to admit they made mistakes of their own. Trimmed back Target stores just didn't work in some places. Ordering on line cut a lot of shopping and not much of that was theft. IN THE MEANTIME, the right wing is clamoring for more police and the failure of the left to protect people.
This is a very important article. It points to the value of lying. Yet in a world of viral videos it should be recognized that the fear and discomfort people experience doesn’t come from statistics. It comes from imagining you will be there or you will have your own place attacked in the same way. That cannot be ignored. If it is, demagogues will take up the issue. We cannot ignore how people feel, nor should we blame it all on demagogues, mistakes or outright lies.
When a newspaper publishes something that has not been fact checked, it lends credence to assertions that other of its articles are "fake news", which plays into the hands of the liars like TFG.