How to Make Crime Feel Weird
The Gist
Mike Pesca
4.4 • 3.6K Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Criminologist Nick Cowen joins to explore how drunk driving transformed from a tolerated norm to a societal taboo, and how deterrence works best when paired with norm-shaping—catching people before tragedy and using lighter sanctions to nudge behavior. He argues that even violent crime clusters could be tackled through community-level norm shifts. Plus, after the worst mass shooting in New York City in 25 years, the New York Times’ spotlights the shooter’s CTE claims and symbolic vendetta against the NFL.In the Spiel, claims we’re reliving 1999.
Produced by Corey Wara
Production Coordinator Ashley Khan
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Wednesday, July 30th, 2025 from Peachfish Productions. It's the Gist. I'm Mike Peska. |
| 0:10.3 | And as you know, because it was in New York, there was a mass shooting in the city the other day on the gist list I talked about. |
| 0:17.4 | It was the same day there was a mass shooting in Reno, Nevada, and one got about a hundred times the coverage. The New York Times, which is the best and best-funded newspaper in the |
| 0:27.0 | city, did what it needed to do on the front page today. Gunman's search for NFL offices in |
| 0:32.4 | attack that killed four. By the way, I didn't realize this. If you would ask me, in the last 25 years, has there |
| 0:40.2 | been a shooting in New York that had more than four victims? I'd have said, yes, probably |
| 0:44.6 | several, but I'd be wrong. This was the worst mass killing in 25 years. So a lot of coverage |
| 0:51.6 | is warranted. It's how the New York Times did that coverage that I take issue with. |
| 0:56.5 | I guess you could say slight issue with, but it's something that I'm very close to that I've talked about, that I have a lot of knowledge of. |
| 1:03.6 | It was the fact that the New York Times had a lot of choices as to how to fill out its coverage. |
| 1:10.1 | They did the main story with the inverted pyramid of the who, what, why, when, and where, |
| 1:16.0 | and that was the front page above the fold on the right, which is to say, lead story. |
| 1:21.4 | But they had a choice what to tag as the accompanying story. |
| 1:25.3 | Inside the newspaper, there was a story of the TikTok of the shooter's |
| 1:28.8 | actions right before the assassination, filled in with some quotes from former associates. |
| 1:34.8 | That's a derogor story, but it's useful. There was a very nice and moving profile of the slain |
| 1:41.1 | police officer. The story they put above the fold on the front page is |
| 1:46.1 | In vengeful screed, talk of CTE and a plea to study my brain. That's chronic traumatic |
| 1:52.7 | encephalopathy. And I've always said that delving into and, let us say, elevating the motives of a madman. In this case, it's a self-professed |
| 2:04.5 | madman. In fact, his madness was in fact why he at least says he carried out the shootings. |
| 2:11.8 | That's never a good thing. And this story was written by Ken Belson, who covers the NFL for the New York Times. |
| 2:18.5 | And for many years, he was the journalistic driving force behind CTE accountability. |
... |
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