After President Joe Biden announced that he would be dropping out of the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as the new presumptive 2024 Democratic presidential nominee — and her ascension has brought about a remarkable — Orwellian, even — shift in coverage from mainstream corporate media outlets.
In 2021, President Biden very publicly tapped Vice President Harris to take charge of the growing criminal and humanitarian crisis at the southern border — a move that garnered significant media attention at the time. Here’s a small sample of the news coverage Harris earned when she accepted responsibility for securing the southern border:
- Associated Press – March 24, 2021 – Biden taps VP Harris to lead response to border challenges: “WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the White House effort to tackle the migration challenge at the U.S. southern border and work with Central American nations to address root causes of the problem.”
- NBC News – March 24, 2021 – Biden tasks Harris with ‘stemming the migration’ on southern border: “WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he has appointed Vice President Kamala Harris to lead efforts to stem migration across the U.S.-Mexico border, as the administration faces growing political pressure to address a surge in undocumented migrant children unaccompanied by parents.”
- POLITICO – March 24, 2021 – Biden makes Harris the point person on immigration issues amid border surge: “Vice President Kamala Harris will be the White House’s point person on immigration issues at the nation’s southern border, President Joe Biden announced Wednesday, tasking her with stemming the rising tide of migrants, many of them unaccompanied children, arriving in the U.S.”
- CBS News – March 24, 2021 – Harris to lead administration’s efforts to stem migration at border: “President Biden announced Wednesday he had tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the administration’s efforts to stem migration at the southern border. Her role comes as border apprehensions have soared since Mr. Biden took office.”
- PBS News Hour – March 24, 2021 – Biden tasks Harris with diplomatic efforts to stem migration amid growing border influx: “The White House is moving today to limit the humanitarian — and political — damage from the migrant challenge. President Joe Biden has put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the effort to stem immigration from Central America, and released new images from holding facilities in an effort towards transparency. Yamiche Alcindor begins our coverage, with Amna Nawaz reporting from the border.”
- Yahoo News – March 24, 2021 – Biden tasks Harris with addressing influx of migrants at the southern border: “President Biden announced Wednesday that he is putting Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of efforts to stem the increased flow of immigrants and asylum seekers along the southern border of the United States… “I can think of nobody who is better qualified to do this,” Biden told reporters at the White House. Harris, he said, will take the helm of diplomatic efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador), where a significant portion of the migrants seeking protection at the border come from, including an influx of unaccompanied minors.”
Now that Harris has become the presumptive rival of Trump in the 2024 presidential election, several national media companies have rapidly shifted their coverage of Harris, replacing coverage of her frequent gaffes and awkward speeches with glowing profiles. But in some cases, the fawning coverage has veered into attempts to re-write history — including from outlets re-writing their own articles to better portray Harris.
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One of the most egregious examples came from Axios, which attempted to defend Harris against criticism of her complicity in the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis that has unfolded under the Biden Administration.
In response to criticism of Harris’s handling of the border crisis from Republicans, including former Trump, Axios released an article outright denying claims that she had been appointed “border czar” in early 2021.
“The Trump campaign and Republicans have tagged Harris repeatedly with the “border czar” title — which she never actually had,” said Axios.
The term “czar,” while quite obviously not an official government position, came into popular usage during the Obama Administration and has been used to denote a federal officials responsibility over a given area of public policy.
Axios’s perplexing new narrative is undermined not only by the countless headlines from 2021, but also by contemporaneous video showing Biden placing Harris in charge of coordinating efforts at the southern border.
Most comically, however, the attempted defense is also debunked by claims made by Axios itself in an earlier article — by the same author.
In a previous article, Axios explicitly reported that Harris was appointed as the “border czar” and was tasked with addressing the “root causes” of the border crisis.
The mainstream media has also rushed to Harris’s defense after some Republicans suggested that Harris is a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) candidate who was selected as Biden’s vice president based primarily because of her race and gender.
On Wednesday, CNN published an article defending Harris against the “right-wing attacks,” claiming that it is entirely inappropriate to accuse Harris of being a DEI hire, and defending her “wealth of experience.”
“In most of corporate America, even calling someone a “DEI” candidate would be grounds for stiff disciplinary action, if not outright dismissal. But attributing the success of Harris to her race and sex has become standard fare among Donald Trump’s media allies who conveniently ignore her wealth of experience in both law and government,” said CNN.
The defense, however, rings hollow in light of CNN’s previous reporting, which explicitly called on Biden to choose a candidate based on race and sex before other considerations, and which published numerous articles in praise of Biden’s 2020 campaign after he said that he would choose a black woman as his vice president.
In 2020, CNN host Van Jones penned an article for CNN titled “Biden should pick a Black woman for VP. Here are 6 great options.”
Jones spent the introduction of his article celebrating black women in general and demanding that Biden “must” select a black woman as his running mate specifically because of her race and sex.
The left-wing outlet also published an article positively covering a campaign by a group of black women intended to pressure Biden into picking a running mate based on her race and sex.
The philosophy of DEI advocates the hiring of individuals according to immutable characteristics, such as race and sex, which have little to do with an individuals talent, skill, work ethic, or ability to perform a job.
Sometimes, DEI considerations are part of a matrix of factors used when making hiring decisions; however, critics of race- and gender-based hiring have alleged — often with good evidence — that DEI considerations at many institutions and businesses have now superseded considerations of merit.
