Early Tuesday morning, singer Justin Timberlake was arrested on Long Island and charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI) following a traffic stop by a young officer who didn’t even recognize him. Also within in the last week, two illegal immigrants were charged with allegedly murdering 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray in Houston, Texas and the arrest of another illegal alien for the allegedly for raping and killing 37-year-old Maryland mom Rachel Morin.
With the first case, the broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC have spent 15 minutes and 18 seconds during their flagship morning and evening news shows obsessing over the arrest of arguably an A-list celebrity. But on the latter cases, the same shows haven’t spent a single second.
NBC’s Today and NBC Nightly News were the worst with nearly eight minutes (7:57), showing their muscle as a boozed up celebrity network. ABC’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight were a ways back at nearly four minutes (3:57) with CBS Mornings and the CBS Evening News just behind them at three minutes and 24 seconds.
In contrast, these cases have received constant and substantive reports over the last week from our friends at the Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel, Newsmax, and NewsNation.
Starting with Nungarayu’s murder, here’s our friend Jennie Taer of the New York Post with the details (click “expand”):
Police in Houston have arrested two migrants from Venezuela for the murder of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, who was lured away from home, then strangled and dumped in a bayou.
One of the suspects crossed the border illegally less than a month before the shocking murder, and was released into the US after claiming he feared for his life if he was sent back to his home country, sources told The Post.
Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26, were charged Thursday with capital murder.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sources said Pena Ramos crossed into El Paso, Texas, on May 28. He was released soon after his interaction with border agents.
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The second suspect, Rangel Martinez, crossed the border at El Pas on March 14 and was released with a court date in August, sources said.
Our Jorge Bonilla first wrote this up for NewsBusters Thursday night and found that, while ABC, CBS, and NBC saw no reason to cover this, Spanish-language networks Telemundo and Univision were all over it.
As for the horrifying murder and rape in Maryland, Baltimore Fox affiliate WBFF had the correct headline (unlike this from the AP on the Houston murder): “Illegal immigrant charged in killing of Harford County mother Rachel Morin”.
The piece then explained, including the revelation that Morin’s alleged killer crossed the border illegally following another murder he committed in El Salvador (click “expand”):
Law enforcement have arrested Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez in Tulsa for the killing of Rachel Morin, a Harford County mother of five who was found dead near a hiking trail in August of 2023.
In a press conference announcing the arrest on Saturday, Harford County Sheriff Jeffery Gahler said that Martinez-Hernandez was arrested late Friday night and booked on Saturday morning; he is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape.
“Five hours after meeting with [Morin’s] family and just before midnight our time, police in Tulsa Oklahoma assisted by our federal partners located and arrested Rachel’s murderer: Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez,” Sheriff Gahler said.
Sheriff Gahler went on to say that Martinez-Hernandez is a “23-year-old citizen of El Salvador.” He said that Martinez-Hernandez crossed the border into the United States in February of 2023, and that he believes that Morin was not his first victim.
“It is my understanding that this suspect, this monster, fled to the United States after the murder of a young woman in El Salvador a month earlier in January of 2023,” Sheriff Gahler said. “Once in our country, he brutally attacked a nine year old girl and her mother in a home invasion in March of 2023 in Los Angeles.”
Baltimore’s NBC affiliate WBAL said in a Thursday article that the suspect’s been “charged with first-degree rape and murder after Morin’s body was found on Aug. 6, 2023, along the Ma and Pa Trail in Bel Air.”
Despite these horrifying details that would seem right up the alley of networks given it’s facts seem straight out of a Lifetime movie, down to the narrative of an attractive, young mother being the victim.
Alas, ABC, CBS, and NBC haven’t shown a care in the world on their top shows.
Outside of the flagship AM and PM shows, CBS’s Sunday morning political talk show Face the Nation had two minutes and 21 seconds on Morin’s murder with host Margaret Brennan pressing Governor Wes Moore (D-MD) on that and the broader border crisis.
Further, ABC’s America This Morning – which airs in most markets in the 4:00 a.m. hour — had a full, two-minute-and-11-second report Monday from correspondent (and former CNNer) Alison Kosik.
