Today, CNN ran an Associated Press report about a showdown at the border between Mexicans dressed in military uniforms and Texas law officers.CNN managed to make this story exceedingly boring, scratching the surface of an important problem while employing a style so flat you could nod off before reaching the end of what they had to say.
Most importantly, though, they provide no background beyond the usual “200 sightings of Mexican military, etc.” Nothing to add to what we already know, and nothing of substance.
The MSM is the junk food of information nutrition.
Why? Is it just ineptitude? Do they not care about American sovereignty? They could have been talking about a showdown in Sri Lanka for all the import their story carried.
Meanwhile, another member of the MSM, The Washington Times, was all over this story like chocolate on New Orleans. And they filed their reports last week, for Heaven’s sake. They had names, numbers, complications and possible solutions.
Reporter Jerry Seper wrote two stories on the problems we’re having at the border, and columnist Tony Blankley took the governmental bureaucracy to task for its failure to lead — or for that matter, even to follow.
On January 17th, The W.T. Insider had the first story. Our report, “Mexican Military Now Invading Our Borders” and the link to Seper’s report here:
| The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions into the United States by Mexican soldiers “trained to escape, evade and counterambush" if detected -- a scenario Mexico denied yesterday. The warning to Border Patrol agents in Tucson, Ariz., comes after increased sightings of what authorities described as heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border. The warning asks the agents to report the size, activity, location, time and equipment of any units observed. |
| Arizona Congressional representative, Rick Renzi, wrote to Secretary of State Rice describing the events at our border with Mexico as “narco-terrorism in its purest form:” | |
| “Our borders are under attack by sophisticated organizations that have no qualms about firing on our Border Patrol units,” Mr. Renzi said. “As we get tougher and more committed, so do the organizations committed to smuggling death and terror our borders.” |
Compare the three reports, two from The Washington Times, and the one today from CNN (a week later) and judge for yourself. Who is reporting the news and who is going through the motions?
As a commenter said of the story on the vandals who were sentenced recently for their destruction of Republican vans more than a year ago in the run-up to the last Presidential election, “Why didn’t we hear about this?” Why, indeed? The Milwaukee paper carried the story but it doesn’t seem to have been picked up or remarked upon in the wider media.
Don’t you wonder why CNN’s big story was Disney acquisition of Pixar? Sure, it matters if you have stock in either company, but other than that it’s trivial.
Maybe that’s the problem with CNN? It can’t tell the trivial from the important.
Compared to our serious, complex, and likely explosive problems with Mexico, the Disney and Pixar story is a gnat’s fart.
Hat tip: Baron Bodissey.
7 comments:
Still working on my own piece on Border subjects.
It looks to me like there are two classes of incursions...Mexican soldiers border police under some sort of control, sometimes apparently chasing smugglers or bandits, sometimes possibly covering their operations; and Mexican soldiers, apparently individuals, possibly in league with the criminal element.
Something appears to be seriously amiss in the Mexican security forces. If they had a problem, they would hardly tell us. Have the cartels...or somebody else, equally well funded, embarked on an organized program to subvert Mexican military and security organs, at least in the northern Mexican states ?
Hope you don't mind, but I had to steal this post for my blog. This just cries to heaven as the perfect way to get entrance to the US for a terrorist cell and its dirty bomb. Load a truck with evil, bribe an officer used to taking bribes for escorting drug runs, then have the army give you safe passage into the US.
But I doubt this administration will call Mexico on the carpet and tell it that if terrorism came to us through their border, they would be held responsible. Too bad, since Mexicans really doesn't have a hate for America (and a huge chunk of their cousins in the US would be affected by any nuke or bio attack here, also), and if they knew the fateful implications of these adventures, sensible people there would be inclined to put a stop to this garbage.
But if we don't raise cain, and we worry more about Pixar than this, then why should they worry any more than us? Here is a thing where for once we can get the other side to easily cooperate if we worked on it, and it gets ignored. Please, remind me what the extra billions of tax dollars for the new Homeland Security uber-Department were supposed to do.
Ik, just use the link! The URL, when displayed, messes up the post width. And, yes, I had read a version of that story.
I fixed your comment:
ik said...
Did you know about this one
CNN banned in Iran for translation error?
I bet they wont be covering this on their front page.
Looking for some info: is there a good breakdown over the last twelve months or so (that is, one I haven't found) of specifically WHERE there have been border incidents with Mexican Army or other military or police forces ?
Reason for my interest is I am attempting to evaluate the problems on the border as they can be related to particular Mexican regional military commands, and particular units (I've recently come across some Mexican order of battle info).
For heaven's sake, why pick on Pixar, that's like one of those phony "opportunity cost" arguments the left is always making ("with the money we spend on one jet fighter, we could buy shoes for five zillion children").
Culture is important, too, and Pixar is an important cultural force.
They didn't ignore the Mexican border story BECAUSE they covered the Pixar story. They don't have to ignore things you don't care about to cover things you do care about. And the Washtimes, of course, covered both stories thoroughly.
let's keep things a little in perspective.
el jefe:
Possible sources of info: the civilian group that is doing or going to do their patrol again.
Rep. Renzi's office (look on Thomas for his office #)probably has this info as part of the Red Zone legislation.
? US Border Patrol? They aren't in denial, but whether or not they're allowed to share with the hoi polloi is another question.
I'd try Renzi first.
Somebody has collected *all* the info in one place, but I don't remember who.
Cato-
I didn't "pick on" Pixar. I'd have pointed out their choice of story if they ran Mother Theresa as their top story. I'm not denying that Disney buying Pixar is news, maybe bad news, but it's not nearly as important as the border issue.
If you're going to run a story on a "showdown" at the border, then it should trump anything of lesser magnitude. And Disney/Pixar has fewer implications for our sovereign health than does the problem we're having with Mexico.
Immigration from the south trumps Pixar, unless you're going to tell me that some Saudi bought five percent of it -- then it goes first...because it has implications for our sovereign health.
CNN is trifling with the news. That's why it's a legacy medium.
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