On the Media (2/16/18)
This week, the Senate failed to pass a bipartisan immigration bill that would have put up funding for President Trump’s wall and extended protections for the so-called ‘Dreamers,’ beneficiaries of an Obama-era program offering temporary residency to undocumented immigrants brought to the US as kids. Meanwhile, the threat of deportation remains a fact of daily life for undocumented Americans, especially since the Trump administration beefed up Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations last year.
But the public has been left largely in the dark about who is being rounded up, because much of the press has ceded control of the narrative to the government. According to Gaby Del Valle, reporter at The Outline, many news outlets are reporting on deportations simply by lifting text verbatim from I.C.E. press releases. She and Bob discuss how the media can improve their immigration coverage by applying more scrutiny to the government’s narrative and including essential context in their stories.