The stories are coming in fast and furious every day.
Media are really covering themselves in glory on the issue of immigration reform.
That’s sarcasm.
Consider, for example, how certain newsrooms reported on a roughly four-minute fundraising video this week produced by the not-for-profit advocacy group Immigration Counseling Service.
The Daily Beast advertised the film with a headline that read, “Watch: Immigrant Kids Forced to Defend Themselves in Court.”
The article is even filed under the tag “heartbreaking.”
Newsweek also promoted the film, running with a headline that read, “Watch: Video Shows What Immigrant Children Face Alone in Court Using Real Transcripts.”
Here’s the thing, though: The video is not real, despite what’s suggested in these headlines.
The film, titled “Unaccompanied: Alone in America,” features performers re-enacting real-life transcripts of conversations between unaccompanied immigrant minors who’ve appeared in court without any legal representation and the judge who heard their cases.
The video is well-produced, and it even addresses a problem dating back to at least 2016, but it’s still an emotionally manipulative fundraising pitch for Immigration Counseling Service. It’s a commercial.
And this is where things reflect poorly on the newsroom that gave the film glossy coverage. Both Newsweek and the Daily Beast note in their write-up that the short video is a re-enactment. But that’s not how they promote the story in their headlines and on social media.
There’s also the partisan framing. The story is being sold by straight and partisan media as a problem of unaccompanied minors in courtrooms that is unique to the Trump administration. But it’s not. This issue predates the current president, a fact that is curiously absent from these write-ups of the Immigration Counseling Service’s movie.
Readers are left with nothing more than an emotionally manipulative video that pushes a certain point of view, all important context and detail omitted. That’s called propaganda.