Elon Musk’s visit to Eagle Pass, Texas, last week was a version of the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” The richest man in the world also commands one of the largest audiences in the world, with almost 160 million X/Twitter followers.
When he posts something, people notice. Big time. And people have noticed his visit to the Texas border town, where he wanted to witness first-hand what was actually happening with the illegal border crossings that have surged once again along the United States–Mexico border.
The 15-minute video of Musk standing at the border speaking with several law enforcement officials and local politicians has so far been viewed 100 million times, which is much greater than the audience commanded by multiple major television newscasts combined.
Musk, through his reach, is able to reframe an entire conversation. That’s especially a good thing for this topic, because the fluid situation at the border needs reframing. The news media has largely failed to adequately report on the issue.
For a number of years now, reporting on the situation at the border has been emotions-based rather than fact-based. News coverage focused on the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump and how his push to build a wall made some people feel, with many labelling it racist. The bulk of these stories failed to discuss the actual basics of the situation.
Back in 2016, a reporter from one of North America’s largest news wire services joined me on a talk radio show I was hosting at the time. Mr. Trump had just won the presidency and the news cycle that day was focused on his plans to build the wall. The tone was that every single aspect of the plan was ridiculous, offensive, and entirely unnecessary.
For the segment, I opted to backtrack a bit and go back to basics. Through our conversation, we re-established that there were indeed hundreds of thousands of people attempting to cross illegally into the country every year—and that those were just the confirmed numbers.
We also established that segments of a border wall were constructed during the Bush administration and smaller parts were built during the Obama years.
The idea that building the wall was some absurd notion dreamed up all of a sudden by Mr. Trump was always false.
The Trump years in fact saw the construction of fewer miles of wall than under the Bush years. Another important caveat is that the Biden administration has likewise constructed a few border wall elements in strategic locations.
All of this is to say that the mainstream news coverage of the border issue has always been sketchy at best. They act as gatekeepers of the conversation, more interested in policing tone than in informing the public of basic facts.
Musk was performing a much-needed act of citizen journalism by physically showing up and offering unedited footage to his massive audience.
“This is real time, unfiltered,” he said on video. “What you see is what I see.”
Musk’s conversations with local politicians and law enforcement revealed that at the specific crossing they were at there were a couple thousand people crossing per day.
The nearby town of 20,000 people had seen a recent surge of illegal immigrants passing through that was equivalent to their entire population. U.S. Representative Tony Gonzales said they were seeing “historic numbers” crossing. The health and social services infrastructure was totally overwhelmed.
While everyone in Musk’s video acknowledged a lot of people were simply fleeing a poor economic situation, law enforcement explained how there was no doubt there were also violent criminals fleeing prosecution.
They also explained how very few of the people crossing are believed to be coming from Mexico, but hail from other countries and are just passing through Mexico.
While Musk’s citizen journalism is to be commended, he did miss one of the classic pro tips of the trade: Don’t bury the lede.
The video consists mostly of conversations. It was only towards the end that he turned the camera to face the border crossing to briefly show what was actually happening: A long line of people were simply walking across—right in front of Musk, in front of the cameras, and in front of law enforcement.
That was the headline-grabbing item. It’s one thing to talk about it. It’s another thing to go there and see it unfold in real time.
Musk’s video drops the spin and the partisan rhetoric. It reveals the cold hard facts. He makes it crystal clear that the situation at the border just isn’t sustainable.
