Border Wall Bias

The perpetuation of misinformation has plagued the media for years creating and feeding into the bias of their consumers only to further distort factual evidence within news reports. Unreliable sources often employ unreliable evidence to create bias. Bias can be defined as the manipulation of the audience in order to force them to think a certain way or convince them of the writer’s opinion. Used as the basis for his 2016 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump has long promised the American people a “big, beautiful wall” set to run along the US-Mexico border. The wall is meant to diminish the amount of undocumented immigrants pouring in from the south. President Trump’s promise has sparked considerable controversy between faithful conservatives

The quote, ”So what’s going on here? Is the famous wall being built?”(Kessler), demonstrates that the intended audience is anyone who has questions on the current progress of the wall. Despite constant bias, the Kessler builds a credibility by citing reliable people and organizations such as “Customs and Border Protection Acting Deputy Commissioner Ronald D. Vitiello” (Kessler). The source is credible because the author utilizes quotes from people with authority. Kessler displays his bias against the wall by stating, “Not to get too technical here, but the definition of a wall is a continuous structure with a common base, while a fence is something that has posts and can be seen through”(Kessler). The author completely opposes Donald Trump throughout the article and this quote demonstrates the author’s willingness to say anything that discredits President Trump and his administration. The article states, “As far as we can tell, from review of local news articles, only 33 miles of new barrier… would be funded under the 2018 bill”(Kessler). A statement such as this could cause the reader to look down upon the new 2018 bill as well as President Trump for not completing what he promised. This will have a negative effect because the audience is being misled to think that any progress on the wall is negative. Other authors could interpret the information as positive and present it in such a way. This article is slightly effective because it contains skewed statistics that can persuade the reader into agreeing with that the author believes. The critical reader should doubt the way that the facts were provided in the article. In this case, the author is at fault for the perpetuation of misinformation because he distorts the facts to appear a certain way that supports his