This Is How the Media Write Propaganda: About Deportations or Anything Else
14th February 2026
A textbook example is from CBS. In particular, the headline is misleading. There’s no question in my mind that this is purposely so, and perhaps the most important part of the game. The headline is often either the only thing people read, or the headline and the first paragraph or two, and articles are shaped by people who are well aware of that. Even if a person does read the whole thing, the headline tends to shape that person’s perceptions.
The headline of this particular article is, “Less than 14% of those arrested by ICE in Trump’s 1st year back in office had violent criminal records, document shows.” Wow, the reader is meant to think, I guess the right is lying when it says the focus right now is on criminals. How many people read articles with such a jaundiced eye that they’re aware of the trap there, the words “violent criminal records” and especially the definition of the word “violent”? Most of those who do read the headline with skepticism are probably not going to be Democrat voters and/or Trump haters, because of the phenomenon of confirmation bias.
I read all articles with skepticism, but that’s only because I have to write about them and need to try my best to get it right, and have learned over and over and over again how much of what we read is propaganda. It happens on both left and right, but more often on the left, and of course most of the MSM is on the left.
That’s why I immediately realized the key word there was “violent.”
I would rather focus on the key words ‘criminal record’. The constant drumming on ‘criminal record’ puts a false notion in people’s mind (especially the minds of those on the left side of the IQ bell curve) that somehow illegal aliens can’t be deported unless they have some kind of ‘criminal record’ (i.e. have been charged with, and convicted of, an actual crime). This ignores, of course, (and that is deliberate) that being in the country illegally is ipso facto a crime; these people are in actual fact criminals, whether they have a ‘criminal record’ or not.
But she certainly has a point.