Though no simple explanation exists for why traditional media are losing the struggle to survive in the digital era, much of the industry’s woes can be attributed to self-inflicted wounds.
Mass media production, for instance, taught audiences long ago that they don’t have to pay directly for the news. Who wants to shell out for information that will eventually appear elsewhere at no cost, whether on the radio, news aggregation websites, or televisions in public spaces? Not enough paying customers, that’s who.
Another problem, one that is quite possibly the main driver of the steady drumbeat of closures and firings, is the product itself. To be blunt: It’s not particularly good, it has not been particularly good for a long time, and it seems unlikely to improve any time soon.
Don’t take my word for it. There’s a reason why public trust in traditional media has cratered. There’s a reason why audiences are abandoning broadcast and cable news, radio, and newspapers for alternative sources, including paid subscriber-only newsletters and podcasts. That’s not a business model problem. That’s a product problem. (If you think it says something about the state of modern journalism that people are unwilling to pay for news subscriptions, imagine what it says when they prefer paid alternative sources over even the free version.)
Insofar as a lousy product is concerned, consider the press’s coverage of illegal immigration, a topic that voters are most likely to say is the “most important problem facing this country today.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but the news coverage stinks.
In Athens, Georgia, 22-year-old nursing student Laken Hope Riley was beaten to death this month after she went for a run at a nearby campus. Her alleged killer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, is an illegal immigrant. He entered the U.S. unlawfully in 2022. He managed to avoid deportation despite establishing an impressive criminal rap sheet almost immediately.
Riley’s death is both tragic and enraging. It’s emblematic of multiple policy and leadership failures at both the state and federal levels. Yet, were you to rely solely on the corporate press for your information, you’d have, at best, a very confused picture of what happened in Georgia.
At the Associated Press, for example, Ibarra is not an illegal immigrant from Venezuela. He is an “Athens man.” Also, if you were to rely on news organizations such as the Associated Press for your information, you probably wouldn’t know that Riley’s death is connected to lackadaisical law enforcement and absent federal leadership. You’d likely think that her death merely “highlights the fears of solo female athletes,” as the Associated Press put it in a stand-alone news report. (In an especially macabre twist, the “solo female athletes” report referenced Mollie Tibbets, who was murdered in 2018 after she went for a run in Brooklyn, Iowa. The report declined to mention that Tibbets was stabbed to death by an illegal immigrant from Mexico.)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution likewise billed Ibarra as an “Athens man.” And like the Associated Press, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has focused its follow-up coverage on practically everything but the U.S.’s shambolic immigration system.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution even published a story titled, “‘Not fair’: After UGA killing, Venezuelans in Georgia worry about backlash.” The story referred to Ibarra and another illegal immigrant, Klinsman Torres, as “Georgia-based Venezuelans,” which is not a thing. There are clear and concise legal terms that quickly identify whether a person is or isn’t a U.S. citizen. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution chose not to use these commonly understood and accepted terms. It decided instead to use befuddling and made-up-on-the-spot euphemisms.
This is not news reporting. This is narrative crafting. This is message control.
This is also par for the course.
The press’s coverage of the immigration crisis has been terrible for years. When it’s not hiding the ball on tragic, shocking, and 100 percent avoidable criminal events, it’s simply denying that an obvious problem is an obvious problem. Recall that the Associated Press in 2021 instructed staffers not to refer to the crisis at the border as a “crisis.” Then, of course, there’s the time in 2023 when Axios “reported” that the U.S. southern border under President Joe Biden is “more fortified than ever.” As if it were not embarrassing enough at the time to claim such a thing, Axios shared the article again on social media this month, claiming, “By using the term ‘open border,’ conservatives are falsely suggesting that anyone can get into the U.S. without much hassle. But the southern border is more fortified than it’s ever been.”
More than 7.2 million immigrants have illegally crossed into the U.S. during Biden’s presidency. This is greater than the combined populations of Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Montana. It’s greater than the individual populations of 36 U.S. states, including Maryland (6.1 million), Wisconsin (5.9 million), Colorado (5.8 million), South Carolina (5.3 million), and Minnesota (5.7 million). The equivalent of eight U.S. states has crossed the southern border since 2020.
But don’t call it an “open border.” After all, what will you believe: Your ability to process numbers or Axios’s assurances?
There’s much more where this comes from, dating back to long before even the Trump presidency, but you get the picture. The coverage is not particularly good, it has not been particularly good for a long time, and it seems unlikely to improve any time soon.
As a result, it seems we are now experiencing the consequences of such reporting. The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, NBC News, CNBC, and other legacy outlets have announced significant layoffs this year alone. Hundreds of reporters, editors, producers, and others, have lost their jobs. Vice Media announced plans to lay off several hundred staffers this year and revealed it will no longer publish content on Vice.com.
It has been a bloodletting, and it is only March.
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There’s a larger conversation to be had regarding how best to keep the lights on in the era of free and instantaneous information. There’s also a more extensive conversation to be had regarding whether the press produces a product worthy of anyone’s money.
After briefly reviewing its handling of the immigration crisis, one could be forgiven for concluding that the answer is a resounding “no.”
Becket Adams is a columnist for the Washington Examiner, National Review, and the Hill. He is also the program director of the National Journalism Center.
