The nation is suffering through its worst border crossing crisis in 20 years and top Homeland Security officials are heading for the hills but the national media have gone AWOL on the issue as President Joe Biden has tried to steer attention to other topics.
A new Media Research Center analysis shows that as the crisis has peaked to over 200,000 crossings last month, coverage by the Big Three networks has crashed 94%.
According to Rich Noyes, the Center’s research director, coverage of the border in August “was virtually nil.”
His August tabulation: Six minutes, 28 seconds of network news coverage during the entire month.
July saw just four minutes 20 seconds, he added.
Border officials said July and August border crossings broke records.
In March, as the crisis escalated, ABC, CBS, and NBC devoted 113 minutes to the crisis as it heated up when Biden ended former President Donald Trump’s policies that effectively closed the border.
But as the news got worse, the network coverage dried up, and some even ignored a Supreme Court loss for the Biden administration that required the White House to put a key Trump border policy back into effect.
