By JOHN KEREZY, eyeoncleveland.com founder
CUYAHOGA FALLS, Sep. 30 — Suppose that in late September 2020, in the heat of a presidential election campaign, it was revealed that Trump-Pence administration had allowed more than 650,000 criminals, including 13,000+ murderers, to enter the U.S. illegally.
Do you think a story about it might have appeared on the front page of The New York Times and the Washington Post? Do you think that ABC, CBS, NBS, PBS, MSNBC and CNN would have given the story prominent coverage?
THIRD IN A SERIES
Let’s add a couple of facts to the story. Officials of the Immigrations & Customs Enforcement Dept (ICE) also admit that they have facilities to detain only about 43,000 people entering the U.S. illegally, meaning more than 600,000 criminals from other countries are freely roaming the streets of our land, today and every day.
Newsworthy?
NOT in 2024 — if you play the “Swap Game” and substitute Biden-Harris Administration for Trump-Pence. In fact, so confident was the Harris For President campaign that the ICE announcement would not receive much media attention that they actually scheduled VP Kamala Harris to visit the U.S. Mexico border in Arizona – for all of 20 minutes and to make a statement to the press – at about the same time.
Predictably, the aforementioned-national media outlets all ran prominent stories about Harris’s visit and what she said on Friday (September 27), and largely or completely ignored the facts which Patrick Lechleitner, Deputy Director of ICE, unveiled to Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) and 23 other members of Congress through a letter dated September 25, coincidentally (or not) just prior to VP Harris’s border trip.
Just below is a link to the letter. Read it and see the statistics for yourself.
There is certainly no lack of facts in the ICE Deputy Director’s missive. Living on the streets of the U.S. today after being illegally allowed into the country are:
- 647,572 people who are either convicted criminals, or who have pending criminal charges
- 105,146 people who have commit physical assaults on others
- 3,971 people convicted of or charge with child sexual exploitation
- 70,379 people convicted of dangerous drug offenses (e.g. fentanyl)
- 14,944 murderers, or people who’ve killed others
- 12,111 people who’ve committed sex crimes (such as rape)
You would never know these facts if you just watched or read the so-called ‘mainstream’ news media. There is now a complete lack of fair play or any sense of even-handedness in the media with respect to the 2024 presidential election.
Here’s just one example, the lead sentence of the story which NBC News’ reporter Shahil Kapur wrote and posted on Friday evening (9/27):
“Kamala Harris highlighted her tough-on-migration stance during a long-anticipated trip Friday to the U.S. Mexico border aiming to cover off a political vulnerability and rebut Donald Trump’s core campaign message that Democrats are soft on immigration enforcement.” (Emphasis added.)
From a journalistic perspective, there are so many things wrong with news coverage today that it’s far worse than the stories which directors such as Wes Craven, John Carpenter and George Romero crafted in their horror films.
First off, today’s journalists are almost all failing the Tim Russert test. NBC News Bureau Chief and long-time director/host of “Meet the Press” until his untimely death in 2008, Russert believed that the first and most important mission of the press was accountability of government. It would grieve Russert to no end if he learned that no one in the press – especially his successors at NBC News – are holding the Biden-Harris Administration responsible for allowing than 600,000 alien criminals from other nations to enter the U.S.
Sadly, these “don’t hold them accountable” policies have taken root in the U.S. press for about 15 years now. And the occupant of the Oval Office in that time which has done the most harm to press and press freedoms isn’t Donald Trump.
It was Barack Obama. Here’s what Matt McClain of the Washington Post wrote in 2017:
“…the Obama administration did more damage to press freedoms than any other administration in history. The press seems to have forgotten that under Obama, the FBI and Justice Department monitored reporters’ phone records, labeled James Rosen of Fox News an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a criminal leak case, and prosecuted nine cases involving whistleblowers and leaks to the press – compared with only three previous criminal cases involving leaks to journalists in all of American history. One New York Times reporter, James Risen, was the target of a DOJ campaign to compel him to reveal his sources in a criminal leak investigation, including a seven-year court battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court….” (Emphasis added.)
Little wonder that Kamala Harris is reluctant to hold a solo news conference (the last one she held was December 2, 2023), as former Obama Administration officials are heavily involved in her election campaign.
Here’s the second and more important point with respect to this abrogation of responsibility: the press is contributing to (what many fear is) the downfall of democracy. Here’s a excerpt from the textbook “Normative Theories of the Media” in a chapter titled “Roles of News Media in Democracy”
“The specific occupational tasks of news journalists … usually involve four basic activities: discovery, collection and selection of information; processing into news accounts; providing background and commentary; and publication….There are alternative versions of these role descriptions, but the most typical list includes the following:
- Providing surveillance of the social environment
- Forming opinion
- Setting the agenda of public discussion
- Acting as a ‘watchdog’ in respect to political or economic power
- Acting as a messenger and public informant
- Playing an active participant in social life”
(Emphasis added.)
No one in the media has had the backbone to insist that President Biden or Vice President Harris explain their administration’s record on allowing so many criminals to enter the U.S. So, collectively, the media would receive an “F” grade for failing to perform that most important function of holding the government accountable for its actions, or inactions. Russert would concur.
And – by simple extension of the status quo – if VP Harris is elected President, then there’s no reason to believe that the media’s obsequious treatment of her would change. Fewer and fewer government policies and rulings would receive media scrutiny. We would know even less about how a Harris presidential administration would operate. It’s sad and tragic to conclude that we – the people – would be less informed than the public has been in the past 80 years about the inner working of government.
First Amendment under attack
Speaking last week at the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Meeting, former U.S. Senator and cabinet member John Kerry called for removing the First Amendment to the Constitution. “…our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just hammer it (a media outlet) out of existence,” Kerry said. You can see a video of some of his comments at a link below from a story about his speech at the website www.realclearpolitics.com
Senator Kerry decried disinformation and misinformation in his comments. Of course, he didn’t explain how the government would have the right to choose which media outlet it would hammer out of existence. As anyone who’s read the Twitter Files can attest, government interference with reporting remains a red-hot topic. It was just four years ago when Facebook and Twitter censored the New York Post’s factual and accurate reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop.
In August, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook censored some of its content in response to pressure from the Biden-Harris administration. He also apologized for censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Then there’s also the Twitter files, stories resulting from billionaire Elon Musk giving independent journalists access to internal Twitter documents and emails which proved the government agencies pressured Twitter into suppressing free speech in the 2020 election cycle.
Seems that the First Amendment, which guarantees American citizens five important freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition the government), is more important than ever in this age of social media. Even if the public doesn’t believe or trust the media, its presence is vital to an informed democracy. (More about this just below).
In the run-up to the Civil War, states in the South made it a crime to distribute or even possess abolitionist newspapers. One of the papers they most hated was “The North Star,” which abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass published and printed out of New York. Douglass knew that freedom of speech and a free press was critical to the anti-slavery cause, and that’s one of the reasons he was adamant about those freedoms. In a speech in Boston in December 1860, he said “There can be no right of speech where any man, however, lifted up, or however humble, however young, of however old, is overawed by force, and compelled to suppress his honest sentiments.”
Then he added this: “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the right of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.”
Sorry, Mr. Kerry. You’re well on the wrong side of history on this issue.
How you really feel, and why the political polls could well be wrong
There’s a fascinating non-profit organization named Populace. In late September it unveiled its Social Pressure Index. Examining the findings from 19,000 American adults, Populace charts that disparity between what people PUBLICLY say (such as in polls) and what they believe PRIVATELY.
For example, Populace says that most Americans say no to this question: Do you think most people feel like they can share their honest opinions about sensitive topics in society today?
What’s astonishing is the great disparity between what people believe publicly and privately on pivotal issues, such as trust in the government. Only four percent of the public trusts the government to tell it the truth. Below are some ‘screen shots” of key questions from Populace. A summary of the organization’s “Top Ten” findings is below, along with a link to the entire research report if you wish to peruse it.
Effort to check on phony news stories
The News Literacy Project (NLP), begun in 2008, has an audacious goal of ensuring that all students are skilled in news literacy before they graduate from high school. A nonpartisan nonprofit, NLP is the country’s leading provider of news literacy education and works with educators in all 50 states.
This year the NLP also took on a companion project, trying to track and check the topics and tactics of the 2024 election for misinformation. While it’s not fully precise (no such effort can be), thus far the NLP’s “Misinformation Dashboard” has uncovered more than 700 falsehoods in five general categories: Candidate image, candidate popularity, conspiracy, platform and policy, and election integrity. You can see this at the website linked below, and sign up to receive regular updates if you wish.
https://misinfodashboard.newslit.org/?_ga=2.202074257.1847069431.1727664868-1066718807.1727664867
First of many October Surprises?
The phrase “October Surprise” refers to actions which a candidate or its supporters might do to awaken public attention on a key issue. One example: Some political observers believe that the most recent October Surprise which might have impacted the election was FBI director James Comey’s letter to Congress resurrecting the issue of Hillary Clinton’s emails 10 days before the 2016 vote.
Tragically, poor federal government response to Hurricane Helene could well impact the 2024 vote. There are already more than 125 people are confirmed dead from the Helene’s devastation, but at least 600 more are missing, and there are reports of small towns in western North Carolina being wiped out by the massive flooding which happened as Helene moved inland after coming ashore in the Big Bend, Florida area late Thursday night.
It’s a lack of action in this case which might have failed to save lives. On the ground in western North Carolina, reports are coming in about a lack of food, water, gas, and emergency shelters for people who have lost their homes in this catastrophe.
On Monday, former President Trump delivered relief supplies and spoke with relief volunteers from Samaritan’s Purse in Valdosta, Georgia, one of the many communities hit hard by Helene.
Also on Monday, Vice President Harris was flying back to Washington DC from raising tens of millions of dollars in campaign appearances in California over the weekend.
Trump takes media questions a lot during his Georgia appearance, and — rightfully — questions the lack of federal government and FEMA response to this disaster. Remember that weather forecasters had predicted Helene’s devastation weeks in advance, just as with Hurricane Katrina 19 years ago. By comparison, Harris refused to take reporters’ questions during what can best be described as a photo-op at FEMA headquarters late in the day on Monday.
And President Biden was at his beach home in Delaware on Sunday.
It’s tragic that politics might cost lives in North Carolina.
Here is a link to the entire Populace Social Pressure Index report:
The opinions expressed here are those of John Kerezy alone, and not those of Cuyahoga Community College.
SOURCES CITED AND LINKS
NBC News Website, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/kamala-harris-tough-migration-pitch-border-points-shifting-national-mo-rcna172850
Matt McMillan, writing for the Washington Post, “Obama’s Lasting Damage,” appearing on the U.S. News & World Report website at https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-01-27/president-obamas-dangerous-precedent-on-press-freedoms
Christians, Clifford G.; Gladder, Theodore L.; McQuail, Denis; Nordenstreng, Kaarle; and White, Robert A “Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies, University of Illinois Press, first edition, 2009
John Kerry’s comments at the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Meeting 2024 are here:
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