“There were top editors who had never been to the South Side of Chicago,”
As someone from Chicago, I can confirm that often, news reports inaccurately represent the South Side–– it's pretty obvious that reporters don't visit the South Side very much, despite their love for writing about it.
but he warned in numerous media appearances about the coming teen crime wave
Can you really predict trends in crime? This reminds me of the War on Crime, which used data to "predict" where crimes would occur based off of past incidents. However, this research was not accurate, and would be detrimental to Black and low-income neighborhoods.