It’s a tale of two different illegal immigrant cases.
On April 14, a Maryland jury found Salvadoran illegal immigrant Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez guilty of the horrific rape and murder of Rachel Morin.
The Maryland mother of five’s 2023 murder was just one of many high profile cases of illegal immigrant crimes that resulted from former President Joe Biden’s border crisis.
In fact, the attorney for the Morin family has squarely blamed Biden’s immigration policies for her death, noting that Morin’s killer was caught at the border three separate times.
So how much coverage did ABC/CBS/NBC devote to the trial on their evening and morning shows?
Zero seconds.
However a Maryland case the media DID care about was the deportation of Salvadoran illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia. From April 1 through the morning of April 15, ABC, CBS, NBC spent a total of 64 minutes, 57 seconds on the “Maryland man” trial.
CBS spent the most time (32 minutes, 25 seconds) on Abrego Garcia. NBC came in second with 17 minutes, 3 seconds. ABC aired 15 minutes, 29 seconds on the deported man’s case.
So why the discrepancy?
The Abrego Garcia case allowed network anchors and reporters to berate the Trump administration for “mistakenly” deporting him.
David Muir’s tone from the April 4 edition of World News Tonight was typical of the coverage as the anchor shamed the administration: “In Washington tonight, a federal judge giving the Trump administration until Monday night to return an immigrant mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The judge saying it was illegal to do so.”
Of course, the networks could have focused on Garcia’s suspected gang affiliations, the details of his 2019 arrest or the fact that multiple immigration courts found that there was credible evidence linking the deportee to MS-13 including, per a confidential informant: confirmed affiliation, gang name, and gang rank. The Daily Caller has more here.
By focusing their attention on the Trump administration’s deportation “mistake” and completely CENSORING the trial of Rachel Morin’s killer the broadcast networks have revealed their agenda to downplay Trump wins against illegal immigration while also burying the Biden administration border security failures.
For this study MRC analysts looked at the broadcast evening (ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News) and morning news shows (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, CBS Saturday Morning, CBS Sunday Morning, NBC Today, NBC Sunday Today) from April 1 through the morning of April 15.
