The Watchdog with David Bozell

The media have a weapon more powerful than any editorial: the power to ignore. No rebuttal. No fact-check. No solemn panel of six people nodding gravely at each other. When a story complicates the preferred immigration narrative, they can simply pretend it never happened.

And that helps explain why Americans increasingly seem to be watching two different movies.

One America sees wall-to-wall coverage of ICE raids, deportations, detention centers and immigration enforcement. The other sees the crimes, the victims and the consequences that can follow when immigration laws are not enforced. Both sets of facts matter. But if the networks show only one side of the story, viewers are not getting a different interpretation of the same movie. They are getting an entirely different movie.

Sanctuary policies can restrict cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration officials. Illegal immigrants are counted in the census population used for congressional apportionment. And then there is the record of illegal immigrants who entered or were released during previous administrations. Covering crimes involving some of them would force the networks to spend a little less time discussing the supposed cruelty of enforcement and a little more time examining what happens without it. 

Suddenly, everybody at the networks had to go organize the supply closet, and MRC just documented the latest blackout.

From August 25 through September 17, MRC reviewed the flagship morning and evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC and found zero seconds devoted to seven cases involving illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes. Three occurred in Northern Virginia, practically close enough for the Washington press corps to expense the Uber.

Here is what did not make their version of the movie:

• An illegal immigrant DoorDash driver allegedly stalked and murdered a Sacramento waitress after sanctuary laws blocked police from contacting ICE over his restraining-order violation.

• A Biden-era illegal immigrant driver killed a 9-month-old baby in a New Jersey parking lot.

• An illegal immigrant fleeing ICE crashed into and injured a New Jersey mayor’s wife.

• A Biden-era release was charged with strangling a Massachusetts woman.

• A Biden-era illegal immigrant allegedly stabbed his Virginia co-worker to death after she exposed their affair.

• Three Obama-era illegal immigrants were arrested in a Virginia child-exploitation sting and released on bond.

• An illegal immigrant with a final deportation order was arrested for dealing fentanyl near a Virginia high school, linked by the sheriff’s office to student overdoses.

Seven cases. ZERO seconds. Apparently there was simply no room. Morning television had weather, recipes and whatever celebrity had discovered the courage to launch a skincare line.

The point is not that every crime involving an illegal immigrant deserves national television coverage. Of course not. The point is that when the networks repeatedly show Americans the consequences of immigration enforcement while screening out serious stories about the consequences of failed enforcement, they shape the public’s understanding before anyone ever gets to the editorial page.

That is how a country ends up watching two different movies. One audience sees an immigration system defined primarily by aggressive enforcement. Another sees communities dealing with crimes and public-safety failures that rarely make the national broadcasts. Then everybody wonders why the country cannot agree on what is happening.

The problem is not merely that Americans disagree about the facts. Too often, they are not being shown the same facts in the first place.

ABC, CBS and NBC can decide which scenes make their cut. MRC will keep showing Americans what wound up on the cutting-room floor.

Take it easy,David Bozell
President