On October 19, federal and local law enforcement conducted a massive raid in Wilder, Idaho – a community about 30 miles west of Boise. The FBI arrested five people in connection with what a Homeland Security spokesman alleged was “illegal horse racing, animal fighting and gambling enterprise operations.” Additionally, ICE detained 105 people suspected of being in the US illegally.
It didn’t take long for the local news media to settle on a story. Just after 10:00 a.m. Monday morning, the Idaho Statesman published an article titled, “Child separation, zip ties and rubber bullets: Inside the Idaho racetrack raidKBOI, the local CBS affiliate in Boise, quickly amplified Story.
By Monday afternoon, local NBC affiliate KTVB had published an article titled, “Idaho lawyers, families facing more questions than answers after wilder arrestThe story said the ACLU was coordinating with a pro-illegal-immigration organization called PODER of Idaho at a press conference outside the Canyon County Courthouse that afternoon.
on that press conferenceThe protesters held placards that read, “Save America: Remove Trump!” poder, whose website Uses the term “LatinX”, states that “no one is illegaland has previously lobbied the Idaho Legislature Allowing illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses,
By Tuesday, the story was firmly settled. KIVI, the local ABC affiliate, aired an interview With a father whose son was arrested by the FBI. The Idaho Press published an article with the headline “Families got separated. Children were scared: Lawyer speaking out against ICE raidEven local media from the other end of the state got involved, with KIFI Idaho Falls publishing, “Increased ICE raids in eastern Idaho raise concerns after federal raid in Wilder,
Governor Brad Little has defended the raidExplaining that illegal gambling operations “are often accompanied by drug trafficking, animal abuse, illegal weapons trafficking and large amounts of money that end up in the hands of cartel bosses.” The release said officers would sometimes “detain other people at the scene to ensure the safety of both civilians and officers and to preserve evidence” and said no children were detained.
On the same day, the Statesman’s weight increased an editorial The law enforcement actions are being called “heartless” and “authoritarianism in action.”
This kind of cookie-cutter, one-sided leftist coverage won’t surprise anyone in a big blue city like Los Angeles, New York or Chicago. But this is Idaho, one of the reddest states in the country. President Trump, who campaigned on mass deportations and strict immigration enforcement, won our state with 67 percent of the vote. He won Canyon County, where the raid took place, with 72 percent of the vote.
It’s fair for Idahoans to ask why our local mainstream media headlines sound like ACLU press releases or Democratic talking points. Despite their local focus, most television and print outlets in Idaho are owned by national conglomerates or hedge funds and staffed by a talent pool steeped in left-leaning ideology. Yet for many Idahoans, these outlets remain the only reliable sources for local news – largely because there is little competition.
Conservatives have complained about media bias for decades, and this story helps explain why. Local journalists rallied around the same narrative – that ICE is unethical, that enforcing our laws is illegitimate, and that we should turn a blind eye to alleged criminality rather than hurt people’s feelings by arresting them. It’s as if they all received the same memo, and they all retrieved its contents.
How stories are framed can dramatically shape perceptions. Under President Barack Obama, the media described “temporary detention centers”, which became “children in cages” under Trump. The same policy reported in different ways generated very different reactions.
Even Idahoans who voted for Trump and support deportations in principle may be second-guessing themselves after reading such headlines. And that’s the whole point. Needless to say, none of these outlets published anything remotely sympathetic about the families of the two local women who were arrested and charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
America is an incredibly diverse country. Americans from New York City, Miami, rural Kansas and Wilder, Idaho can live very different lives and have very different opinions. Yet today news narratives are consolidated and packaged from a single point of view, then disseminated through local outlets across the country. Idahoans who subscribe to the Statesman for local news and high-school sports scores are served controversial stories in much the same way The New York Times produces stories for its readers.
When reporting so dramatically diverges from a community’s deepest values, it erodes trust not only in the press but in society as well. All Americans – whether in red states or blue, cities, suburbs or rural areas – deserve journalism that reports the facts before they are, separates news from opinion, and reflects the viewpoint of the entire community, not just that of a small but very politically active minority.
Brian Alman is the chair of the District 14 Republican Party of Idaho, a trustee of the Eagle Public Library Board, and editor. gem state chronicle,
