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Why doesn’t anyone trust the media? The media doesn’t just lie. It pushes agendas so compulsively that it will mislead readers within an article even about something that it eventually has to admit in that article.
Let’s take this story from a local CBS News affiliate.
Carnegie Mellon student with one semester left learns his visa was revoked with no explanation
No explanation. Really?
Not until you get through 17 paragraphs (and a basement cupboard with a sign on it reading ‘Beware of the Leopard”) to learn that the Chinese student in question had a DUI.
But CBS isn’t just going to go ahead and tell you this. Nope.
(Also in the interests of journalistic objectivity, he’s interviewed next to a conveniently placed American flag.)
It’s going to run paragraph after paragraph (not to mention a headline) suggesting that there was no reason for this whatsoever.
There’s a subheader titled “No reason given for revocation”.
And a lot of suggestions that the whole thing is a mystery and Ma is a nice hard-working boy.
Ma said before his visa was revoked, it had been valid through the spring of 2026. He said he was working hard to complete his degree by December.
His attorney said that Ma has not received an official termination letter from the United States Customs and Immigration Services.
Only 10 paragraphs down is there a brief admission from his immigration attorney. “Murphy believes this may be happening from an expunged DUI case involving Ma in 2023.”
No kidding.
“That [DUI] didn’t result in the finding of guilt. I understand the records were expunged,” Murphy said. “The case was dismissed and expunged after he went through the process.”
Murphy said Ma did complete ARD classes.
ARD is Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition, a program for first-time offenders that is supposed to expunge criminal records. That’s a local decision which doesn’t change what happened.
The media doesn’t bother defining for its readers what ARD means and leaves the impression that the Chinese student in question did nothing wrong.
Only by the 20th paragraph do you finally learn that, “This week, several immigration attorneys have reported that students receiving notice that their visa statuses have been revoked have had some sort of run-in with the law.”
This doesn’t just bury the lede. It deports the lede to Gitmo, shackles it in a dark room and threatens it with rubber hoses if it ever reveals itself.
Now it’s possible to have written this story honestly (perhaps not by 21st-century mainstream media people) while still advocating for Ma. The headline might have been something like “Carnegie Mellon student faces crisis after losing student visa over DUI”. But the CBS affiliate couldn’t even manage that. Instead, it bet that its readership, most of whom just copy things to Facebook while heading to an afternoon dinner, wouldn’t read past the second paragraph. And it probably won the bet while losing what little is left of its journalistic souls.
See B.S. Fake News 60 Minutes Sunday Morning and Eye on America
Yeah, one of my favorite topics: “Ignorance of the Law is no excuse”.
Growing up in a loose environment where legal violations were winked at with a blind eye, then suddenly caught in a situation where the law is taken seriously. I try to warn the young ones about that.
When I was studying yoga as a teenager I thought it was all about obtaining supernatural powers and experiences, and that the list of “Does and Don’ts” were unimportant. Now I think “Do this, don’t do that” is most important.
Most of the positive religions have a good list of rules, like “Gluttony is a deadly sin”, “Don’t commit adultery”, “Don’t steal” “Don’t murder” etc (Islam excepted 🙂
Those rules seem at first glance like restrictions on your behavior, but actually are there to keep you out of trouble. Gluttony can give you hernias, for example.
DUI can get you into all kinds of trouble.
If I had written the headline,I would have left in the humor:
“Carnegie Mellon student’s visa revoked after ARDuous journey.”
The body of the story would have referenced the DUI as “Diversity, Unconsciousness, and Inebriation,” and would have included a warning to foreign students that Americans will try to drink them under the table…..and we are GOOD at it.