NEW YORK (AP) — Access to government-run facilities housing young immigrants on the border with Mexico sparked one of the first fights between news outlets and the administration of two-month-old Joe Biden. . Before the doors opened slightly this week, the media was limited to describing how those in detention in the United States were treated and how that compared to what was done during the Trump years.
What’s behind that? Here is an overview.
WHY HAS MEDIA ACCESS BEEN BLOCKED?
The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” is a cliché for a reason. And governments know it well.
“It’s sort of the default government agencies turn to when things aren’t flattering,” says Freddy Martinez, policy analyst for Open the Government, an organization that advocates for open government.
News agencies claim to have repeatedly requested access and been blocked. The Associated Press, for example, has asked Homeland Security officials to access Border Patrol facilities at least seven times, with no response. The Biden administration has emphasized the need to establish safeguards for the transmission of COVID-19 and to protect the privacy of children as they work to build their migrant processing system.
“I will commit to transparency as soon as I am able to implement what we are doing,” the president said at a press conference this week. When asked how long it would take for that to happen, Biden said he didn’t know.
But some journalists called it hypocrisy given his promises during the campaign. After the press conference, CNN’s Jake Tapper said Biden’s stance was “not quite consistent with the transparency he promised the American people.”
BUT I HAVE SEEN PHOTOS OF CHILDREN THE LAST DAYS. HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
Some of them are not from the professional media but from people with special access.
U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat from Texas, on Monday released still images given to him and taken at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility in Donna, Texas. These photos, taken through plastic sheeting, showed children, several of them covered in blankets, lying on mats lined up side by side on the ground.
The Department of Health and Human Services released government-shot video clips and on Wednesday allowed an NBC News camera crew and reporter Gabe Gutierrez to tour an HHS facility in Carrizo Springs, Texas.
In the NBC video, some children lined up while oranges were handed out, and others played soccer on an outdoor field. Their faces were obscured. An empty dormitory, with four beds, was shown, as well as clothes distributed to young people.
While that access is an important step, Gutierrez and others noted that HHS-run centers are where children are sent after being processed at a customs facility like the one Cuellar visited. Customs posts are considered much more congested and journalists have still not been allowed access.
DID FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP ALLOW JOURNALISTS?
The three presidents who preceded Biden have all allowed at least some access, Martinez and other groups demanding more access said in a letter this week to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
However, such access was not always intended to please the press. Stephen Miller, Trump’s top immigration adviser, told Politico’s Playbook this week that he wants the press to have access to it, saying the images of immigrants being held at the border are something Trump supporters Trump wanted to see.
WHY DO WE CARE?
Because bad information often replaces the lack of information. A lack of quality news is creating a void that activists on both sides of the controversial immigration issue are only too eager to fill, says Dan Shelley, executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association. He says, “It’s more important than ever that journalists have the access they need to accurately and independently report on the Border Patrol’s response.
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David Bauder is the media editor for the Associated Press, based in New York. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/dbauder
