For several weeks, the news media have been abandoning their roles as reporters with the duty to provide accurate information from a dispassionate perspective. It is clear many are suffering from “separation anxiety” as they fail to “report” on the Trump administration’s immigration policies in the wake of a rapidly-rising flow of illegal immigrants across the U.S. border.
The story has now risen to such a level that all three news networks dispatched their anchors to Texas so they could tour detention centers and interview women and children trying to enter the U.S. Rather than act as mediators, many have been performing as agitators.
During a Monday interview Manuel Padilla, chief of the Rio Grande Valley Sector of Customs and Border Protection (CPB), tried to explain to with CBS’s Morning News anchor Gayle King the complicated history of protecting the border.
He described the influence of smugglers and how CPB began to implement a policy to detain family units in 2014. But King clearly did not want to hear how events today resembled those taking place during the Obama administration.
“Let me stop you there because I don’t want to go back to 2014,” she informed Padilla.
Today, King chose to interview an American citizen who legally emigrated from Mexico about the situation on the border.
The man told King that “we can’t just open up the borders” because often “we lose our jobs because a lot of these people coming in, they are willing to do the job for a portion of the pay. And so we’re left out.”
His argument did not persuade the anchor, who clapped back at the man, saying “This is bigger, though, than opening up the borders. This is about children being separated from their parents.”
Like many of her colleagues in the media, covering the surge of immigrants and asylum seekers is now a political cause.
According to the Media Research Center, the three television news broadcasts spent 94 minutes on Monday morning criticizing the Trump administration’s policies and over the last week, they have aired “almost three hours (176 minutes) of emotional segments that included pictures of crying children and accompanying anger from correspondents and pundits alike.”
By comparison, the major broadcast networks dedicated a mere 6 minutes and 29 seconds to child detention policies during the Obama years. Given the overwrought and over-the-top coverage of the border crisis today compared with reporting during the Obama administration, it is easy to see why King and her press colleagues want to ignore news coverage from the past.
All of the emotion-driven stories leave few moments to spare for other issues, such as any discussion of the Flores agreement, which governs the treatment and detention of minors in immigration custody.
Under the terms of the agreement, which the Obama administration accepted, the federal government is left with a Hobson’s choice: either release the entire family within weeks of their detention, or detain the parents for an even longer period of time while their cases are adjudicated.
Policy analysis was for another time and another administration.
Three years ago, ABC News’ Jim Avila filed a story on the surge of unaccompanied children and mothers with young children coming across the Mexican border and overwhelming detention centers in the U.S. Avila did not blame the administration, not hurl accusations that the practice of leaving mothers in bus depots without money or provisions was inhumane.
Instead, Avila correctly noted that groups were trying to “exploit legal loopholes in American border security” and described it as “a humanitarian crisis actually caused by U.S. law.”
Those would be the same loopholes that exist in the law today and are further exacerbating an already dysfunctional immigration system.
7 Comments
Well, the so-called “mainstream” media are showing their true colors. Now we can clearly see how hostile are they to us and our Republic. This is why are they siding with invaders and call, and quite hypocritically so, on us to surrender to invaders’ “human shields” barbarian invasion tactics.
For several weeks? Make that for several YEARS! The MSM has been filtering their “news” so that it did not reflect badly on Obama or the Democrat Party, and now they have joined the Democrats in The Resistance. That means that they still protect the Democrats from any bad news, but they also make sure that they criticize President Trump and Republicans as frequently as possible, for anything and everything Trump says or does, and anything his family members do or say, or how they do or say it. If nothing they do can be criticized, THEN THEY LIE ABOUT IT! Trump’s “Fake News” slogan was right on the spot. The Resistance has now joined forces with the Deep State, since they now have a common enemy, and that includes all the intelligence capabilities, the FBI, the CIA, and the DOJ.
They abandoned the principles of good reporting a long time ago.
I was disappointed that the President caved in and signed this bill! Two bills are to be put to Congress tomorrow, he should of put Congress to the fire!! This has been going on thru at least 2 other Presidents…1 more day would not matter!! MSM exaggerates and pulls at the heart strings of people!! We have 6 legal ports in our country, with proper paperwork and keep FAMILIES together…go there!! These people look very well fed coming so far and dressed clean and new shoes and flip flops..for traveling so far..what a sham. FIX THE WALL..DEPORT THESE SO CALLED FAMILIES, WHO PUT THEMSELVES IN HARMS WAY!! WE PAY MORE TO THESE KIDS THEN OUR OWN CITIZENS, NO MORE…CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN AND REJECT PAUL RYANS BILL OF AMNESTY!!
It’s Trump Derangement Syndrome.
This is the moment that rabid liberals have lived for. The moment they can turn their every growing wrath onto Trump and securing our borders. They have made it clear that they want open borders. They don’t care about the damage it does. They don’t care that under Obama, many of the same policies and tactics were used. If Democrats would work with Trump to build the “wall” and fund a properly secured border, this whole mess would not have happened. Rabid Democrats don’t want a secure border. They want open borders and a free for all in America. They want to give America away to whoever wants to cross our borders. Criminal minded or not. If our borders were secured, we could turn our attention to spending time and money on the needs of America, veterans, our children, our needy, our homeless instead of wasting it dealing with illegal migrants. These mothers & children are not fleeing persecution. They are sobbing that they are fleeing the same crimes that we have here in America. Domestic violence, gang violence, rape, murder, America has it all. These adults & children should all be deported back to where they came from. Mexico has already taken back most of their citizens from this mess.
The proof that they are here for the good life is that many travel through several other countries to get here. If it’s a matter of being “safe” they are in Mexico and not their home countries. But that is not their goal. What is also ignored is the fact that a lot of these minors are in their middle teens. It is not unusual for many to join gangs at 12 or 13. The Pope is condemning our detention policies. Until he tells those people it’s not a sin to use birth control he needs to shut up. An organization that has paid out billions all over the world because they repeatedly ignored child abuse.