Serwer brought up common misconceptions about immigrants and noted, “None of those things are true, but they don’t know those things aren’t true because most of the time when they turn on the TV and they see stories about immigration, or they open the newspaper and they read stories about immigration, it’s about extremely negative stuff.” 

Serwer went on to call out the segment he was appearing in, noting, “Look at the b-roll that we’re doing right now. Even though migration is down, we’re showing b-roll of the border. I mean, this is just how the game works.” 

 

Serwer is correct. Media Matters recently looked at b-roll about an immigration story that had nothing to do with the border and found frequent examples of networks airing misleading footage: 

Media Matters reviewed coverage of the Biden administration's announcements and found b-roll footage of the U.S.-Mexico border was prevalent across much of national TV news, which supplemented their coverage of the new policies (which, again, would only affect long-term residents) by treating viewers to seemingly chaotic scenes from the border, including long lines of waiting migrants, seemingly treacherous crossings behind fences and barbed wire, and militarized enforcement. This border b-roll fixation feeds a skewed misconception that immigration policy is solely about border control rather than a larger issue that affects millions of people who have been in the United States for years.

As Serwer noted, “We can’t expect, you know, politicians to correct Americans’ broadly held misconceptions when the media isn’t willing to do that.”