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Roger Ailes' attempt to capitalize on a "tremendous business
opportunity" --and win votes for the Republican Party. |
By
Aldo Guerrero
The anti-immigrant reporting of
Fox News Channel (
FNC) comes as no surprise, considering that its viewership is similar to the base of the Republican Party—older white
conservatives. The growing Latino share of the population, however, spurred the creation of the website
Fox News Latino (
FNL) to try to capture this audience.
Fox News president Roger Ailes (
New Republic,
2/11/13),
who oversees both outlets, describes the Latino demographic as both a
“tremendous business opportunity” and a potentially capturable segment
of the electorate: “The fact is, we have a lot—Republicans have a lot
more opportunity for them.” Though he corrected himself—changing “we” to
“Republicans”—for the long-time Republican operative Ailes, the
political interests of the network and the party are interchangeable.
There have been various instances where both
FNC and
FNL covered the same story with different headlines catering to different audiences. For example, the liberal Media Matters (
8/8/14)
compared the two outlets’ use of different headlines to describe an
unauthorized immigrant student receiving a scholarship for his
immigration activism: The
FNL headline (
8/6/14) read: “In Rare Move, University Grants $22k Scholarship to Undocumented Student.”
FNC went with the blunt slur of “Money for Illegals.”
But the differences between
FNC and
FNL
go beyond headlines. Coverage of the child refugee crisis, where
thousands of unaccompanied minors attempted to cross the southern border
from Central American countries, provides a good case study.
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On Fox News Channel, the "immigrant child" would more likely be IDed
as "illegal alien kid." |
Like other corporate media outlets,
FNC
largely avoided meaningful context by downplaying the violent
conditions of the three Central American countries—Guate-mala, El
Salvador and Honduras—that provided the bulk of the refugees (
Extra!, 9/14).
FNC
consistently blamed the Obama administration’s supposedly lax
immigration policies—particularly the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program—for encouraging young refugees to come.
Citing an El Paso Intelligence Center report (
7/7/14;
Breitbart Texas,
7/14/14),
FNC’s Megyn Kelly (
Kelly File,
7/16/14)
asserted that children were crossing the border only because they
“believe they will get asylum, thanks to policy statements by President
Obama, and are not, as was claimed, fleeing any increased violence back
at home.” Violence as the primary motive for these children leaving
their countries was merely, as Bill O’Reilly (
O’Reilly Factor,
7/16/14) put it, a “myth that the far left is putting out.” Reducing
the emphasis on violence in those countries made it easier for
FNC pundits and Republican lawmakers to call for the children’s swift deportation.
Over at
FNL, meanwhile, a Q&A-style article (
7/20/14),
neutrally headlined “A Primer on the Border Crisis—Its Causes, Politics
and the Bickering Among Lawmakers,” attempted to answer why there was a
sudden influx of immigrant children. Its answer:
Crime, gang violence, poverty across Central America, a
desire to reunite with parents or other relatives. White House officials
also say smugglers have persuaded families to pay them to bring
children to the US by lying to them about their fate in this country.
The
FNL report was not exactly a mirror image of the
FNC’s, being more “fair and balanced.” Although
FNL
acknowledged harsh conditions in those countries were central factors,
Republican criticisms of Obama’s DACA program, and suggestions that
ending it might solve the problem, were also mentioned.
A starker contrast could be found two months later.
FNL (
9/11/14)
ran an exclusive and rather affecting report about five children
fleeing gang violence in El Salvador. A gang had threatened to kill the
children after they witnessed the gang shoot their 21-year-old neighbor.
Their hometown was described as having a “far higher murder rate than
the national average.” Their mother—who fled an abusive husband in El
Salvador to live in the United States—had paid smugglers “tens of
thousands of dollars” for their safe passage. Clearly, violence was a
central theme to this particular story—as it was for the broader refugee
crisis.
One would be hard-pressed to find such empathetic coverage on
FNC. Unfortunately, the
FNL piece was published in early September, when media coverage of the refugee crisis had largely subsided.
FNC, by that point, had shifted its attention to the
purported negative impacts immigrant children would have on US public
schools. Brenda Buttner, host of the
FNC business program
Bulls & Bears (
8/9/14),
prefaced a discussion on the surge of immigrant children: “Forget the
Ebola scare. Is it really the back-to-school scare?” She briefly
mentioned that some children were quarantined with chickenpox, but the
panel discussion that followed focused on how much of a financial burden
these children would become to local public school districts. While
most states require children to be vaccinated against chickenpox anyway,
telling viewers that their children are threatened by disease-carrying
immigrants (who want to benefit from free public schools) is a great way
to capitalize on xenophobic fears.
FNC emphasized the word “illegal” to describe immigrant children now in school. In two articles (
8/30/14,
9/2/14)
covering the “crisis in the classroom,” children were referred to as
“illegal” a total of 11 times, with references to “illegal immigrant
children,” “illegal minors” and “illegal alien kids” in the headlines,
in quotes from Republican lawmakers and in the reporters’ own words.
When
FNL (
10/14/14)
did its own reporting on the situation, the word “illegal” was never
used to characterize the children. Instead, they opted to use
alternative—and less pejorative—phrasing, such as “newly arrived
migrants” and “unaccompanied minors.”
The tone of the coverage was also more sympathetic and lacking in
fear-mongering. Instead of fixating on the supposed damage these
children will do to US public schools, the story focused on the
difficulties these children personally face in overcoming gaps in
education and receiving social services. The story even mentions how
violence in their home countries prevented traveling to school, which
adds credence to the claim that violence is central to families’
decisions to migrate. Most of these details were absent in conservative
FNC coverage. And, once again, the story appeared on
FNL only after
FNC had already reported on it.
When comparing the content of the two outlets,
Associated Press reports uploaded to the channels’ websites were not included. In 2013,
AP (
4/2/13) announced it would drop the use of “illegal immigrant” in its stories (
FAIR Blog,
4/4/13), having concluded that “illegal” should only be used to describe actions, not people. (
AP still accepts “illegal immigration.”)
Unsurprisingly,
FNC (
4/3/13)
was critical of this change, given that the phrase is central to its
immigration coverage. The headline for its report stressed that the
changes were “under scrutiny,” although the report also quoted two
supporters of the change:
AP itself and the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The three sources who defended the use of
“illegal” were former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the
conservative Media Research Center, and the Americans for Legal
Immigration Political Action Committee.
ALIPAC described
AP’s changes as “totalitarian steps
to make ‘illegal immigrants’ disappear with a stroke of a pen,” and
announced it would now refer to immigrants as “illegal invaders.” Such
ultra right-wing vitriol was sure to rev up the anti-immigrant audience
that
FNC caters to.
The
FNL version (
4/2/13) used a more straightforward and neutral headline: “‘Illegal Immigrant’ Dropped From
Associated Press Stylebook.” Journalist José Antonio Vargas, the Applied Research Center and
AP
(again) were mentioned as supporting the changes. For opposition, the
right-wing Federation for American Immigration Reform and ALIPAC were
represented, but ALIPAC’s vitriolic comments on the “totalitarian”
changes and its determination to use “illegal invaders” were not
mentioned, presumably so as not to alienate the Latino audience.
As long as violence and poverty exist in Latin America, they will likely be the central drivers for migration. It is politically convenient for
FNC
to whitewash the pervasive violence and harsh economic conditions of
Central America—and ignore the contributions US policies have made to
these conditions (
FAIR Blog,
7/14/14).
The refugee crisis and the school problems that followed were stories
framed as “illegals” coming to take advantage of the United States’
offerings. The repetition of this tired trope paves the way for the
further antagonization of all immigrant communities. But most
importantly to
FNC, misrepresenting the Latino immigrant experience engages their white Republican viewership.
Meanwhile, by focusing on Latino issues without the xenophobic
spin—and occasionally providing insightful reporting that digs deep into
the plight of immigrant Latinos—
FNL is able to expose a
broad Latino audience to conservative ideas that might lead them into
the Republican fold. During the election season,
FNL
featured reports that focused on individual candidates and elected
officials and their relationship to the Latino community. In 10 days
shortly before the midterm elections (October 21–30), a total of seven
Republicans had positive stories dedicated to them, including Sen.
Marco Rubio, Sen.
Ted Cruz, former Florida Gov.
Jeb Bush, Jeb Bush’s son
George P. Bush, New Mexico Gov.
Susana Martinez and two
congressional candidates.
Five Democrats had stories dedicated to them, with three receiving positive coverage: Labor Secretary
Tom Perez, Rep.
Luis Gutierrez and a
mayoral candidate in Rhode Island. The other two, who received more negative coverage, were Rep.
Joe Garcia, who is fighting allegations of corruption, and
Hillary Clinton,
who received flak from immigration activists—as if Republicans aren’t
also criticized by immigration activists. For good measure, a Pew study (
10/29/14) of “waning” Latino support for Democrats was also featured.
By fear-mongering about Latino immigrants,
FNC is able to pander to xenophobic white conservatives who make up the base of the Republican Party, while
FNL,
with feel-good coverage of Latino conservatives, can make a bid to
expand the party by bringing in Latinos. It’s a powerful strategy—so
long as the two target audiences don’t compare notes.
Reprinted with permission from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.
