This week I’m going to evaluate the sources used in a New York Times article, “Faces of an immigration system overwhelmed by women and children,” (Fausset, R., Belson, K., June, 2014). It’s a decent story, follows basic news guidelines, gives us current information, context so we can understand the situation and eye witness reports by the journalists on the scene, but it lacks comment from one of the most important sources — the immigrants.
The reason I selected this article to critique was actually because of another article one of my relatives in Texas posted on Facebook yesterday. It was the picture on the post that first caught my attention, it was of a desperate looking Latina woman holding her baby. It looked sad and as if they were in a terrible situation, and I was hoping to learn more about this woman’s plight. The headline was the second thing to catch my attention: “Medical staff warned: Keep your mouths shut about illegal immigrants or face arrest,” (Starnes, T., July 2014). The photo didn’t seem to go with the headline, I was confused, so I clicked. What I found was a very strange article, not well sourced and no context given — it seemed as if it was an opinion piece disguised as a news story. It doesn't even attempt to explore the root of the issue.
After reading it I immediately went to other news sources to see how they had covered the situation.
That’s when I came across the NYT’s story, which like the Fox News story, is about the immigrant children from Central America who are being housed at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
I use Virginia Montecino’s “Criteria to Evaluate Credibility of WWW Resources” (1998) as a foundation for looking at the credibility of news sources and the implications of unrestricted web publishing, where anyone and everyone can share their version of events with millions of people and subsequently shape the country's response.
The Fox article focuses on the issue of the children having contagious ailments like lice and scabies, and medical staff being asked to keep it quiet — but there are only three sources in the entire article, two are unnamed workers at the camp. Overall, it doesn't provide much as far as credible information, but it contains inflammatory information that could potentially cause people to act out against people who are already suffering. Without the context as to why these people are suffering, all the reader can see is how they pose a risk to Americans.
The New York Times article focuses on how the reporters observed the camp as well as the implications and causes. It has on-the-scene observations, quotes from local and federal officials, as well as information from an official document the NYTs acquired, which gives broader context. The reporters got access to the facility and are able to describe what they saw, how the children looked and what they were doing.
It explains how the children are being transferred to other facilities and that officials are overwhelmed with the situation. It describes border patrol officials and local groups who are upset by the transfers, the political implications and that the White House claims the migration is due to increasing violence and economic issues in Central America.
One source is Raul Ortiz, a border patrol chief in Texas, who explains the latest apprehension of illegal immigrants. His comments are pretty basic, no partisan views expressed and no clear bias. Although the comments are so dry they may just be talking points he was authorized to give.
The next source in the article is “an internal draft Homeland Security document.” According to this document, the reporters explain, the federal government expects more than 90,000 immigrants this fiscal year, and that basically those who come spread the word back home that others should come as well. The reporters don’t explain how they got their hands on the document. But Peter Boogaard, a Homeland Security Department spokesperson, the next source, says “the draft was not official policy and had not been finalized or circulated.” We learn two things from Boogaard: one, that this document is legit, and two, that this may not have been the final word on the issue.
Another government source the reporter uses, although unspecifucally, is “Health and Human Services officials said that most children remained in the department’s custody for about 35 days.” But they don’t say who the HHS officials are or in what manner they said this.
The reporters also quote Chris Cabrera of the Rio Grande Valley border patrol union, who says dealing with the children has diverted them away from the border, opening the door for others to come in.
They quote Kimi Jackson, director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, who is trying to help the children get asylum in the United States.
Both of these sources have agendas, Cabrera is looking out for the border patrol officers and the challenges they face, while Jackson is advocating for the children. Together they offer balance and we see there are multiple interests involved and a variety of advocates.
In their first-hand description of the Lackland Air Force Base, the reporters say roughly 1,200 children are there. They say it’s clean, with simple dorms, typically where troops stay. The children are checked for scabies and lice, then “served hearty American cafeteria food and given fresh white tube socks.”
They admit, however, that the tour of Lackland was restricted and reporters were not allowed to speak with the children or take photographs. This could mean that the tour was set up to appear a certain way.
Later they describe it having a “summer-camp atmosphere,” with staff preaching to children, teaching them English and caring for the sick. They describe hearing laughter and socializing among the children. There are “hints of the trauma they had survived,” with inspirational posters hanging along the dorm rooms.
The story on Fox News tells a much different story. According to two anonymous sources, “taxpayers deserve to know about the contagious diseases and the risks the children pose to Americans.” They say they must keep their identities secret because authorities have said they would be arrested if they spoke out. There seems to be connections being made to Nazi concentration camps, and throughout the story, the writer refers to them as government camps, run by “brown shirts,” that have strict policies for the workers.
One of the anonymous sources is quoted as saying, “The children had more rights than the workers.” That quote is actually the transition in the story from discussing how poorly the workers are treated to how dangerous the children are. This anonymous source says the children have measles, scabies, chicken pox, strep throat, and mental and emotional issues. She says sometimes as she is talking to children lice are crawling down their hair.
Another anonymous source, a former nurse there, says she was horrified by the health of the children. She is quoted as saying, “We have so many kids coming in that there was no way to control all of the sickness — all this stuff coming into the country.”
She said the lice situation was epidemic and became alarmed when the children were being sent to other areas. She said she quit when she apparently pleaded with supervisors to admit a suicidal child to a hospital and they didn’t listen.
At the end of the article, the reporter gives several paragraphs to Krista Piferrer, the spokeswoman for the Baptist Family and Children’s Services, the organization running the facility. She explains that they take complaints seriously and that they are supervised by the DHHS. Basically, she just defends the integrity of the organization and doesn't provide any additional insight into the situation at the camp.
Just after this bit, the writer states, “My sources say Americans should be very concerned about the secrecy of the government camps.”
The writer, Todd Starnes is the host of the radio program Fox News and Commentary, and his conservative beliefs are no secret.
This Fox article could be dead on, I wasn’t there, I don’t know what it looks like. But I do know that it doesn’t give me any real understanding of the larger issue and it doesn’t attempt to talk to all those impacted. The NYT’s reporter was on scene, had many more credible sources, but they were missing stories of the children, accounts by those most impacted.
Both stories have flaws that leave them open to some interpretation. But after reading both, evaluating each source and their sources, it’s clear who did the better reporting and who is more objective.
The problem with unrestricted web publishing is that these two articles have the same potential reach and the same potential influence, as do the numerous blogs and viral posts on the situation. While one reporter seems to be playing on people’s fears and reporting to conclusions based only on unnamed sources, the article is packaged as credible news. The NYT’s article, on the other hand, may not be sensational, it may not garner as many hits and shares, but it provides a more objective view of the situation, with both original reporting and a variety of sources.
The benefit of unrestricted web publishing is that people can do their own research, such as I have, to determine which sources are credible and which journalists are properly sourcing their stories. The real question is, will they? Do they know how and what to look out for?
Columbia Journalism Review took notice of the coverage of the thousands of migrants coming into the United States illegally, and they note that many journalists are focusing on the political implications (Garcia, M. July, 2014). Missing in the coverage is a focus on the actual legal rights of the minors coming over and the context explaining why they’re coming. They note good reporting by The Dallas Morning News, The Valley Morning Star and the El Paso Times. But they say most of the coverage is seriously lacking and playing on our political beliefs about immigration, rather than the humanitarian aspect.
“It’s not an academic discussion,” Garcia (July, 2014) writes. “How the issue is framed and explained plays a critical function in shaping the public policy response.”
I would assume that most people publishing on the web realize that their content has the potential to influence both public perception and the public policy response. But some are clearly trying to manipulate that influence in the direction they want, rather than trying to provide informative news that can act as a guide in perceiving and responding to major events.
References:
Fausset, R., Belson, K. (June, 2014). Faces of an immigration system overwhelmed by women and children. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/us/faces-of-an-immigration-system-overwhelmed-by-women-and-children.html
Virginia Montecino (1998). Criteria to evaluate the credibility of www resources. Education and Technology Resources. Retrieved from http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm
