Nothing to see here, just a major Obama/Biden program being declared illegal on Wednesday by a federal judge, in this case the decision that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has to go. But you wouldn’t know it if you watched CBS and NBC on Thursday morning. Both networks, despite a combined four hours of available air time, ignored the ruling. ABC’s Good Morning America covered it — but for a scant 19 seconds.
Here’s GMA co-host George Stephanopoulos: “A federal appeals court has agreed that the DACA immigration policy is illegal. Will allow it to continue for now.” He added, “[The program] protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from being deported. President Biden said the new ruling means that the lives of Dreamers remains in limbo.”
No mention on CBS Mornings or NBC’s Today.
But none of this is a surprise. On September 5 2017, 99 percent of the coverage of Donald Trump’s decision to rescind DACA and put Congress in charge of it was negative In 2018, CBS, a network that downplays the border crisis, touted a DACA medical school student whose “dream is in jeopardy.”
Anything that’s bad news for Biden gets buried by the press. According to a recent NewsBusters study, “In eight and a half months of fentanyl stories, ABC, CBS and NBC allowed just two mentions — totaling 30 seconds — of the man in charge of the immigration policy leading to this drug crisis.”
The hiding of this latest defeat for Joe Biden was sponsored on CBS by Progressive, on NBC by Capital One. Giving the story only 19 seconds on ABC was sponsored by JC Penney.
A transcript is below.
Good Morning America
10/6/2022
7:31 AM ETGEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Also, a federal appeals court has agreed that the DACA immigration policy is illegal. Will allow it to continue for now. The judge sent the case back to a lower court to review a new set of Biden administration rules on the program. It protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from being deported. President Biden said the new ruling means that the lives of Dreamers remains in limbo.
