Reuters fires data scientist who dared question the left-wing Black Lives Matter narrative
By jdheyes // 2022-05-01
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When our founders created the First Amendment's free press guarantee, very few of them would have believed that just a couple of centuries later, American media outlets would voluntarily become nothing more than propaganda outlets for central government elements. Yet, that's what the so-called "mainstream" media has become: One massive propaganda machine pushing groupthink and like-minded narratives while punishing all who dare to question the left-wing, anti-democratic messaging. Case in point: Former Thomson Reuters data scientist Zac Kriegman, 44, who, as reported by City Journal, was tailor-made to be in the position he once held. He had "a bachelors in economics from Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard and years of experience with high-tech startups, a white-shoe law firm, and an econometrics research consultancy," the outlet reported. "He then spent six years at Thomson Reuters Corporation, the international media conglomerate, spearheading the company’s efforts on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced software engineering. By the beginning of 2020, Kriegman had assumed the title of Director of Data Science and was leading a team tasked with implementing deep learning throughout the organization," the outlet added. But then it all fell apart. A chain of events that began with the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 that culminated with a statistical analysis of claims made by Black Lives Matter activists would lead to his professional demise. By June of the following year, the data manager was locked out of Reuters' servers, blasted by his colleagues, and fired -- by email. "Kriegman had committed an unpardonable offense: he directly criticized the Black Lives Matter movement in the company’s internal communications forum, debunked Reuters’s own biased reporting, and violated a corporate taboo," City Journal reported. Citing a "moral obligation" to speak up, he would not embrace without question BLM's narratives or Reuters' "diversity and inclusion" propaganda. In fact, just the opposite: He argued that the media conglomerate was exhibiting a distinct leftist bias in its newsrooms and that the continuing BLM riots and violence, along with "defund the police" calls, would negatively impact minority communities the most (and that has happened). For months following Floyd's death, Kreigman became increasingly disillusioned with the corporate narratives when, during the first week of May 2021, he posted a lengthy, data-heavy critique of the hypocrisies espoused by Reuters and BLM. That led to him being sent to Human Resources and Diversity & Inclusion (which is misnamed, of course, because these companies don't want 'diversity' and 'inclusion,' they want groupthink and rigid conformity) to 'reform' his views. He didn't and Reuters booted him. A subsequent analysis of Reuters' reporting from the spring and summer of 2020 and beyond bears out Kriegman's assessment, City Journal reported, adding that it became clear the newswire was simply echoing BLM messaging and far-left narratives about 'systemic racism' and 'racial injustice,' even as cities burned, businesses were looted, and police officers were regularly assaulted. In all, around $2 billion in damages were caused by post-Floyd rioting. “I believe the Black Lives Matter (‘BLM’) movement arose out of a passionate desire to protect black people from racism and to move our whole society towards healing from a legacy of centuries of brutal oppression," he wrote in the introduction of a 12,000-word essay, titled “BLM is Anti-Black Systemic Racism," a "statistical investigation comparing BLM’s claims on race, violence, and policing with the hard evidence from a range of academic and governmental sources," City Journal noted. “Unfortunately, over the past few years I have grown more and more concerned about the damage that the movement is doing to many low-income black communities. I have avidly followed the research on the movement and its impacts, which has led me, inexorably, to the conclusion that the claim at the heart of the movement, that police more readily shoot black people, is false and likely responsible for thousands of black people being murdered in the most disadvantaged communities in the country," he wrote. In particular, Thomson Reuters, Kriegman added, has a media obligation to “resist simplistic narratives that are not based in facts and evidence, especially when those narratives are having such a profoundly negative impact on minority or marginalized groups.” After being fired for refusing to toe the line, Kriegman says he believes what he did was worth it, but he is upset that it literally had zero impact at Reuters, which is supposed to be a media organization reporting factually and truthfully. And he said most of the friends he made at the company have abandoned him like cowards. “It’s absolutely clear that in our major news organizations, people are not discussing these issues openly. They can’t afford to. They’ll be fired," he said. Sources include: City-Journal.org Kriegman.Substack.com
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