A new FAIR study finds that TV news coverage of the southern US border largely ignores the experiences and voices of those most impacted by the immigration system.
Despite the Biden administration’s promise of a more humane immigration approach, thousands of children continue to be detained at the border. The issue has gotten widespread media attention, but in a highly sensationalized manner that lacks critical analysis as well as historical context (FAIR.org, 3/25/21, 5/24/21).
FAIR studied the coverage of migration at the US southern border on five major evening TV news shows: CNN’s Situation Room, ABC World News Tonight, Fox News Special Report, MSNBC‘s The Beat and CBS Evening News, from March 14 to April 14.
Who spoke in border stories?
Over this period, these five shows featured 194 sources over 60 segments on the border issue. (Several of these were repeat appearances by the same guests; we counted 113 unique sources total.)
Most sources—122, or 63%—were current or former US government officials. Of these government sources, 66% were Democrats, mostly from the Biden administration: The top three sources were Joe Biden, with 18 appearances, White House press secretary Jen Psaki with 14 and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas with 12.
While migrants and refugees were frequently shown on air, only 11 migrant/refugee sources were heard from—a total of 6% of all sources. Three of the migrant/refugee sources were unnamed. Notably, the migrant/refugee voices had hardly any dialogue. Most interactions were translations of short answers, such as “a lot of dangers here in Mexico” (Gustavo Mendez, CBS 3/22/21) or “a better life for your children” (unnamed Guatemalan woman, CBS, 3/23/21).
Migrant/refugee sources had on average one sentence apiece, or around 11 words, and a total of 126 words spoken between them. There were almost twice as many law enforcement sources (21), who spoke a total of 736 words.
Words Spoken by Sources in Border Stories: Migrants/Refugees vs. Law Enforcement
Of all sources for which immigration status and race/ethnicity could be identified, 74% were US-born, 72% were male and over half were non-Latinx whites. Only 22 sources were immigrant citizens/residents, and of these, 19 were high-ranking government officials, mostly repeat appearances by Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s chief of DHS, and Sen. Ted Cruz, both of whom are wealthy white Latino men whose immigration experiences are very different from those of the mostly poor and Indigenous people being detained at the border. As Roberto Lovato, Salvadoran-American journalist, wrote (CJR, 6/26/18): “What good is a Latino politician when the voices of people at the border, of experts, and of leaders from their large communities in the US are erased?”
Varying representation
The shows varied significantly in their coverage. At one end of the spectrum, 40% of the sources on CBS Evening News were from the US government, whereas fully 92% of CNN‘s sources were current or former officials. US government officials made up 72% of sources on Fox, 57% on MSNBC and 51% on ABC.
The shows varied significantly in their coverage. At one end of the spectrum, 41% of the sources on CBS Evening News were from the US government, whereas fully 92% of CNN‘s sources were current or former officials. US government officials made up 72% of sources on Fox, 60% on ABC, and 57% on MSNBC.
Six of the sources on CBS were migrants/refugees; ABC aired five migrant/refugee sources. There were zero migrant/refugee sources on CNN, Fox or MSNBC.
CBS (4/6/21) and MSNBC (4/12/21) did offer exceptional investigative reports by going to Guatemala, where many US migrants/refugees originate, and speaking with locals and government officials about how recent hurricanes worsened people’s living conditions, and the effect of Biden’s immigration messaging on people there.
CBS also had the most immigrant and Latinx representation among its reporters: 41% (7 reporters) were immigrants and 82% (14) were Latinx. In contrast, CNN and ABC had zero immigrant reporters, and Fox had one immigrant reporter from Australia. Although representation does not necessarily translate to better reporting, it is notable that CBS Evening News stands out among the shows in terms of featuring reporters that might better relate to the stories being told.
Missing context providers
Notably marginalized were Central American scholars, immigrant activists or journalists who could have challenged the dominant government voices or provided greater historical context and analysis of the complex issues around immigration.
Only 7% of the sources were immigrant advocates, most of whom were from nonprofits that tended to support Biden’s “compassionate” rhetoric, but said little about his actual policies—such as Sister Norma Pimentel, who was asked, “What makes this time so much different than previous years?” on CBS News (3/17/21):
There’s several components that are definitely different. The fact that we have a president, an administration that is very open to respond in a very caring, compassionate, and a very respectful way to human life.
There was only one source, immigrant advocate Erika Andola (MSNBC, 3/24/21), who spoke to the broader issue of the carceral immigration system as a whole:
We have chosen to send Rambo to the border, instead of sending Mother Teresa, right? We are sending more and more money for Border Patrol, for militarization to the border. And I can go on and on, instead of figuring out, how do we create our infrastructure that can welcome people, so we don’t have to open these kinds of reception centers or detention centers for children that pop up every now and then?
Partisan framing
Both TV news and Democratic and Republican government sources, for different purposes, mentioned Biden’s attitude as the reason more migrant/refugees were coming to the border (CBS, 3/21/21; MSNBC, 3/23/21, 3/24/21, 3/25/21, 4/12/21; Fox, 3/30/21, 3/24/21, 3/25/21). Fox tended to feature reporters and sources who called Biden’s policy of allowing unaccompanied minors to stay too lenient, resulting in a humanitarian crisis at the border.
Centrist corporate media pushed a narrative that distinguished Biden from Trump as a humane president, and downplayed the conditions children were subjected to at the border or excused them as Trump’s fault. MSNBC in particular featured pundits that boosted this line of a more “compassionate” (3/25/21) and “caring” (3/24/21) administration.
CBS reporter Christina Ruffini (3/21/21) introduced her segment on March 21: “His [Biden] administration’s compassionate approach to immigration policy has been confused for leniency, and a record 15,000 migrant children are now in U.S. custody.” CBS‘s own reporting contradicted this line; after speaking with migrants/refugees at the border about why they are coming, correspondent Manuel Bojorquez (3/23/21) reported that it is less about policy change and more about the conditions migrants/refugees are fleeing.
Who’s to blame for ‘crisis’?
The news shows routinely referred to the border situation as a “crisis,” using the word at least once in 40 out of 60 segments to describe the border situation. Much of the conversation revolved around which administration—Trump’s or Biden’s—was to blame for it, as if the inhumane conditions and detention of migrant/refugee children at the border did not predate the last five years:
[Biden’s] cleaning up a mess that was left there by President Trump, and his systematic and inhumane attacks on the immigration system.
— Sen. Tammy Duckworth (CNN, 3/22/21)
It is an emergency. It is a crisis. It is one of their [Biden administration’s] own making.
— Sen. John Thune (CBS, 3/24/21)
None of the few migrant voices that made it on air supported this blame game, and instead spoke about the oppressive conditions they were fleeing, and those they continued to endure. An unnamed migrant woman interviewed in a shelter in Tucson, Arizona, who had been recently separated from her son, said on CBS (4/1/21) : “You got to this country, a country of freedoms, and now you’ve been separated.”
Because the media framed the situation at the border as a Biden vs. Trump or Democrats vs. Republicans issue, the only voices aired that were critical of the Biden administration were Republicans blaming Biden for a supposed “open border” policy.
The reality is that over 480,000 people have already been deported since Biden took office, largely using Title 42, a Trump-era policy that Biden has quietly continued. Families are still being separated, albeit not with the same type of force as under Trump (Politico, 3/20/21): Parents now have to make the devastating decision to separate themselves from their children in order for them to at least have a chance at asylum. Biden’s budget request for 2022 has an $18 million increase in funding for ICE, and his administration is still seizing people’s land near the border in order to continue construction of the wall he promised to not build “another foot of” (ABC, 4/20/21).
By giving over the conversation almost entirely to government sources—whose dominant policy positions range from cruel to crueler—TV news offered extremely limited room to highlight and challenge those realities.
Methodology
We used the Nexis news media database to search transcripts of the shows studied from March 14-April 14. We defined a source as any person either asked a question by a journalist or making a statement to a public audience on camera, such as at a press conference. People whose casual comments were incidentally captured on tape were not counted as sources.
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