BROADCAST BIAS: Networks downplay illegal immigrant crime, even when women are murdered
On Thursday, March 19, an 18-year-old college student at Loyola University in Chicago named Sheridan Gorman was allegedly shot dead by an illegal alien from Venezuela, Jose Medina. The networks could barely touch the story, or talk about the immigration status of the alleged shooter. CBS only spent two minutes, followed by ABC at 79 seconds and NBC at 23 seconds. Searching for it on PBS or NPR found nothing.
PBS stations did waste 90 minutes on a documentary titled, "White With Fear," about how Republicans use overtly racist tactics to win elections, and one of those, they claimed, was highlighting violent crimes by illegal immigrants. Their primary example was conservatives reporting on the 2015 killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco.
The networks hate reporting on crime committed by illegal immigrants. They would insist it’s atypical. They love to proclaim that illegal immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans – if you’re willing to dismiss the crime of entering the country illegally or overstaying a visa. But this ignores the obvious logic for grieving families like Gorman’s – if the alleged illegal alien killer hadn’t been allowed into the country, their loved one would still be alive.
GORMAN FAMILY CALLS OUT JOHNSON AND PRITZKER FOLLOWING COLLEGE STUDENT'S KILLING IN CHICAGO
Gorman’s family put out a statement about their loss and the politics of it: "Sheridan’s death cannot be reduced to a general 'tragedy,' nor can it be explained away by broad references to failures somewhere else," the family said. "We are not interested in political arguments or in watching responsibility shift from one place to another. If there were failures—as the Governor [J.B. Pritzker] himself has acknowledged—then every one of them must be identified, examined, and addressed directly."
"Our daughter is not a policy debate. She is a life that was taken, and that demands accountability," they added.
The networks could cover this story by leading with empathy and not politics, but they’re too defensive of the Democrats, and these stories feel like "pro-Trump" narratives, so they fear upsetting their liberal friends more than they fear looking insensitive to the victimized. They don’t want anyone to think that mass deportation will deter violent crime.
In a sad note for the future of journalism, the editors of Loyola’s student newspaper abjectly apologized for describing the alleged assailant accurately in the headline as an "Immigrant man." They changed it to merely "man" and then described him as a "Rogers Park resident" instead of an illegal immigrant. "That headline didn’t reflect the most important elements in the story, and it was taken down minutes later to prevent any further harm to affected community members," they wrote. As opposed to the "harm" the illegal immigrant is alleged to have done.
ANGEL MOM, GOP BLAME SPANBERGER AFTER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WITH 30 ARRESTS CHARGED IN KILLING
Gorman is not alone. Stephanie Minter, age 41, was stabbed to death on February 23 at a bus stop near George Washington’s Mount Vernon in northern Virginia. The alleged killer is Abdul Jalloh, an illegal alien with more than 30 arrests. "Jalloh is currently being held in Fairfax County on murder charges in Minter's death," according to WJLA in Washington, D.C. We didn't find that story on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS or NPR.
But they will pounce on the immigration enforcers when someone dies while obstructing their enforcement. The ICE agent shooting Renee Good as she drove into him was a national cause for weeks, drawing hours of coverage. But Laken Riley and Rachel Morin and 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray were skipped over as MAGA talking points. Riley and Morin’s convicted murderers were illegal immigrants. The alleged attackers charged in Nungaray’s murder are also illegals.
Last year, at the Media Research Center, we found that ABC, CBS, and NBC had spent 143 minutes from April 1 to 23 championing the cause of accused MS-13 gang member and "Maryland man" Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, who Trump deported to a "notorious" prison in El Salvador. But the trial of the illegal-alien assailant of Morin, a mother who was raped and murdered in Maryland during a jog, drew a mere 12 seconds on NBC, and nothing on CBS or NBC. The networks spent 717 times more coverage on Abrego-Garcia.
Rachel Morin’s mother’s condemnation of Maryland Democrat Sen. Van Hollen — in front of the White House press corps — could not spur network coverage. But ABC’s Mary Bruce did promote the "remarkable image" of Van Hollen’s visit in El Salvador with "wrongfully deported" Kilmar-Garcia.
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Also in Maryland, an illegal immigrant named Hugo Hernandez-Mendez was charged with the murder of 19-year-old Black woman DaCara Thompson last September, to zero coverage on the networks. The alleged perpetrator had been arrested in April and charged with driving under the influence by the U.S. Park Police, but was let go pending his trial in that case.
Thompson’s mother said she was "very disappointed" to learn that her daughter’s alleged killer had been released in April instead of being remanded to ICE custody. "We may not be here today if they did what they were supposed to do."
This underlines that the "nightly news" on these elitist networks is not an objective assessment, but a carefully manufactured narrative, where the "news" they favor helps the politicians they favor. No one was seeking to embarrass Maryland’s members of Congress or Maryland Democrat Gov. Wes Moore for these murder victims.
In this midterm election year, journalists will try to keep immigration as a negative issue for Trump and the Republicans. They imply everything Trump touches turns into disaster. They helpfully promoted Democrats claiming ICE might kill people when they helped out the TSA with security at American airports. The "news" feels upside down – that ICE is "lawless" and the illegal immigrants are all nonviolent and "law-abiding."