What’s missing: Questions raised about immigration details in Colorado crime coverage

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Free State Colorado: our local media ignores the fact that a sex offender is here illegally

In a funny coincidence I noticed a couple of stories, one national and one local, about essentially the same topic. They’re both about how the media has a problem with selective attention.*

In particular to the two different stories, it’s how the lefty media ignore the illegal immigrants do in this country.

The first link below is to a Fox News op ed about this topic, spurred (though not limited to) the murder of Sheridan Gorman in Chicago by an illegal immigrant. Especially noteworthy was just how little—see the image heading this post—time the big networks devoted to her murder and the man committing it.

Closer to home, you have a great video by Free State Colorado about a child predator (also here illegally) who tried to run to Mexico to avoid prison after his conviction.** As with Chicago, his being here illegally was largely unmentioned by major local media outlets.

I find this lack of context interesting. I didn’t contact the outlets that are mentioned either in the Fox story or in Free State Colorado’s story—I didn’t have time to in order to get both up today—but I can’t help wondering whether or not the dynamic at play is what you see in the third link below.

That is a link to a NY Post story about how a Loyola University student paper quickly removed “illegal immigrant” from their story about the murder and then just as quickly apologized for using the term. The “illegal immigrant” was replaced with (per the third link) the words “Rogers Park Resident” which is the neighborhood where the alleged killer resided.

This is an outgrowth of something I’ve noted before in looking at media, the “person first” language that has now become the default style along with the oft-repeated sentiment (actually used in the editor’s note when explaining the Loyola paper’s decision) that no human being is illegal. It is also, I believe, the media’s sympathy for one group manifesting in their coverage choices.

Neither seems right nor fair.

It is not inaccurate to label someone as a “Rogers Park Resident”. It is also not inaccurate to label the local case as a “Castle Rock Resident”. It’s also not inaccurate to say that someone is an immigrant who is here illegally, person-first or not.

The thing is that the first two labels above leave out important context. Mentioning that someone who commits a crime is here illegally might offend the reporter, it might inflame some readers more than others, but it also informs.

If it is (and I believe it is) important to note what ICE is doing, it is just as important to know what the illegal immigrants they police are doing. Why would we focus on what some see as the failure of the government to train/restrain its law enforcement officers but not pay any attention to its failure in securing the border?

It’s important to inform readers why it is that someone might be running from Castle Rock to Mexico: that this individual is going back to his home country in the hopes of melting in and hiding, or at least with the hopes that Mexico might be less apt to extradite him as a native citizen. That the ability and ease with which you can move through our border has real consequences.

Media bias need not always show up as a reporter lying or distorting fact. Media outlets can never once lie and still not be producing news, relaying stories to you about your world, but rather opinion. They can do so by what you read about here: the bias can show up in what they put their attention to, whose stories are amplified and whose are not.

*It should be noted that this applies to media across the ideological spectrum. They play what their audience wants, thus my recommendation that if you want to be fully informed you should read/watch/listen widely.

**On a related note, though not germane to this post, is what Mr. Wark of Free State mentions in his video: how on earth does someone like this child predator get bail and what kinds of failures in the system led to his ability to detach his ankle monitor without anyone being alerted. When we talk soft crime policies in this state and failures of the criminal justice system, we need to remember things like this. It isn’t just the laws we have in place that cause problems.

Fox News: Broadcast bias — networks downplay illegal immigrant crime even when women are murdered

Free State Colorado: Media bias

NY Post: Loyola’s student newspaper issues apology over Sheridan Gorman story

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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