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I finally looked up the exact number of times the phrase 'crisis actor' was used on major news sites in 2023
It was 247 times, and that's just CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. I was tracking it for a project on how media frames shootings. The spike happened right after the Nashville school event. Makes you wonder who pushes that term and why it always follows the same pattern. Has anyone else tried to track a specific phrase like this and seen a weird pattern?
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stella3076mo ago
Yeah, I tracked "lone wolf" mentions for a year. The pattern was so obvious, it was almost funny (in a sad way). Every single time there was an attack by a white guy, that phrase would flood the news for about 48 hours. I just used a simple search on each network's website and logged the dates.
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dylanbarnes6mo ago
But that's just how the news cycle works, they grab onto any quick label. It could just be lazy reporting, not some big pattern.
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henry_grant6mo ago
Man, I tried tracking the phrase "economic anxiety" for a month. My spreadsheet was so depressing I just started using it to count how many times my cat meowed for food instead. It's wild how these terms just appear everywhere at once like someone flips a switch. Your Nashville spike totally fits that. Makes the whole "lazy reporting" idea feel too nice, like it's way more planned than that.
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