When it comes to the Joe Biden White House, journalism hurts.
With the illegal immigration invasion topping 2 million this fiscal year and the issue becoming hotter as the midterm elections get closer, the White House has apparently turned to a whispering campaign to attack one of the few correspondents bringing the story to the American people on a regular basis.
And it’s using a mainstay of the mainstream Washington media to do it.
According to a report Tuesday in Politico’s West Wing Playbook column, anonymous “current and former White House and administration officials” have been expressing their “increasing frustration” with Fox News’ Bill Melugin and his relentless coverage of the illegal immigration crisis Biden’s criminally reckless policies have created on the nation’s southern border.
Fortunately, Melugin doesn’t appear cowed by the attention at all, posting the Politico report on his Twitter account Tuesday night …
.@politico reports that the White House has become “irritated” with me & our @FoxNews team’s reporting at the border. https://t.co/SuJvqzgbey pic.twitter.com/fZiRK46ZRp
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) September 20, 2022
And getting plenty of support in the process …
You’ve just been reporting the chaos that is our southern border right now. The sheer volume of people crossing has to be a tremendous burden for everyone down there.
— Gary Taylor (@gtaylor83) September 21, 2022
If they are noticing, then you are being effective. Time to double down!
— REDACTED (@quiettactician) September 20, 2022
Sounds like you’re doing something right but seems like you’re in a hit list now
— BobTeeBuilder
(@bobteebuilder) September 20, 2022
Tellingly enough, the Politico report is headlined “A Doocy at the border,” drawing an implicit connection between Melugin and Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy, one of the few reporters who cover the administration — and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — with anything like the skeptical professionalism the job demands.
(The fact that a single reporter stands out enough to be used by name in a headline for simply covering the White House aggressively — without the high school histrionics of a Jim Acosta, say — is itself a damning indictment of the media in the Biden era.)
While never raising questions about the accuracy of Melugin’s reporting, the report carries the administration message that “there is an alarmist quality to it, designed to feed political narratives rather than illuminate the actual issues feeding the migrant flow.”
An “alarmist quality” in the mainstream media? And this is published in the same city where the giants of American journalism — The Washington Post, The New York Times, all the major non-Fox networks – spent five years breathlessly reporting, and winning Pulitzer Prizes, on the “Russia-collusion” hoax?
If you were in the Biden White House, presiding over a disastrous illegal immigration crisis without any solution in sight, you might find this kind of report “alarmist” too.
NEW:
– We embedded w/ @TxDPS in Uvalde as troopers pursued a human smuggler & arrested 11 Honduran men hiding in a ranch, some dressed in camouflage.
– El Paso illegal crossings surging.
– Nearly 100 illegal immigrants found stash house.
– Child rapist caught crossing in AZ. pic.twitter.com/fYz0v6ggt6— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) September 15, 2022
What’s actually alarming is the language of the Politico report, which relies on vague, disturbing words to convey the idea that the White House has a legitimate complaint.
