VICTOR JOECKS: Inverse journalism skews illegal immigration debate

Imagine reading this: “Police officers open fire at a school; six dead.”

That’s not a real headline, but it could describe an actual tragedy. Who would be responsible for the deaths?

The phrasing of the fictional headline implies that police officers went on a killing spree. But when it comes to the real event in question, they didn’t. In March 2023, a woman pretending to be a man went on a shooting spree at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. She killed three 9-year-olds and three adults. Officers Rex Engelbert and Michael Collazo rushed to the scene. Risking their own lives, they entered the building. After spotting the shooter, they opened fire and mortally wounded her.

CBS News offered this headline: “What we know about the two police officers credited with fatally wounding the Nashville school shooter.”

Notice this. Both headlines contain accurate statements. But no one would call the first one journalism. It would be inverse journalism — using technically true facts to create an entirely inaccurate impression of what happened.

Unfortunately, inverse journalism isn’t a hypothetical problem. It’s prevalent in some coverage of ICE and illegal immigrants.

“ICE detains four children from Minnesota school district, including 5-year-old,” The Washington Post reported recently.

“Detention of 5-year-old by federal agents incenses Minneapolis,” The New York Times wrote.

Both headlines are inverse journalism.

“On January 20, ICE conducted a targeted operation to arrest Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote on X. “As agents approached the driver, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, fled on foot — abandoning his child. For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias.”

If an ICE agent hadn’t stayed with the boy, leftists would have accused the agency of child abandonment. The boy’s mother didn’t want to take custody of him. His father requested that the boy remain with him, so ICE kept the father and son together.

Remember during the first Trump administration when the left claimed to be outraged about separating illegal immigrant families? Now, they’re upset that the administration is letting parents decide if their child remains with them as they are deported. Talk about wanting to have it both ways.

This isn’t even the first time the propaganda press has tried to skew an event such as this.

“Video shows ICE with 5-year-old girl while agents attempt to arrest her father,” NBC News reported in September.

Once again, an illegal immigrant deserted his child in an attempt to avoid being arrested and deported. That father had previous arrests for domestic abuse and strangulation. ICE agents stayed with the girl and worked with local police to return her to her mother.

A more accurate headline would read “Attempting to avoid ICE, illegal immigrants abandon their young children.”

But the truth wouldn’t advance the left’s preferred narrative, so slanted news accounts serve up inverse journalism. That this dishonesty could lead to riots in Minneapolis appears to be seen as a bonus, not a reason for precision.

Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.