Amateurs running today's newspapers ignore the nation's worst humanitarian crisis

How else to explain the newsroom dilettantes who aren't reporting the biggest, saddest story about the illegal immigration swamping the southern border?

Yesterday, 10,000 illegal immigrants swarmed into Eagle Pass, Texas, according to Fox News. Add that to the 5-million-plus already here. Yet the major news outlets have mostly ignored the year’s most crushing humanitarian crisis:

Where are they all going?

That 5 million exceeds the population of metropolitan Chicago. Isn’t there a newsroom in America that’s wondering how they’re doing and where they end up?

Sure, a few thousand have “overwhelmed” New York, where they have created a disaster of the first order. Mayor Eric Adams has warned that it could “destroy” the city. The press gave that plenty of coverage.

But where’s the coverage of the struggles of the millions of others who have scattered to points unknown throughout America?

I spent more than four decades in the newspaper business. I’ve been an editorial board member, an op-ed columnist, assistant financial editor and covered the urban affairs, transportation, science and technology beats for three major Chicago dailies. Today’s journalistic poseurs would not have lasted long there.

Imagine I’m running the news, national or city desk. I’d have reporters ride with or follow the immigrants to tell their stories from start to finish. If the few thousand are having such a hard time in the northern, Democratic Blue cities, what has happened to the rest of the 5 million others?

Detail their struggles. Get on the bus with them. Or walk with them to whatever their next destination is. Isn’t it strange that so much attention is paid to Texas and Florida governors for busing or flying them elsewhere, but who is reporting on how they travel perhaps thousands of miles to their planned destinations? If some are, I’ve missed it.

Do they actually have a destination? Or are they wandering around looking for one, like Moses in the desert? How are they traveling? In a bus? Who’s paying for it?

In a strange land, how do they eat? Are they starving? Where do they sleep? Where do they go to the bathroom? Do they do their business in a back alley or in a field? Are they begging? Do residents treat them badly as they travel through the country?

Such first-person stories back in the day weren’t usual; they were admired for their accurate story-telling. And for the compassionate description of their struggles. Seems like only a select few in northern cities deserve any attention.

And more:

How many immigrants actually have a place to go? How many get there? If not, what do they do? Camp out on the sidewalk with home-grown homeless? Are there millions more immigrants homeless? How many are unemployed? If employed, who is hiring them? Is it illegal?

How many have carried out their obligation to report to immigration judges to demonstrate how they qualify for asylum? What is their fate? Deported? How many must report?

What happens to the hundreds of thousands unaccompanied children? Are they turned into sex slaves? Do they end up working in factories illegally? How many actually make it to the families that are suppose to take them in? How is that working out for them? Are they attending schools?

How much money is this costing nationally? We only hear about what it costs individual cities. What public services are being diverted to take care of the immigrants. Tell the stories of those who no longer receive those services. Chicago is looking at a half-billion-dollar budget shortfall; will it have to borrow, borrow, borrow more money? Will it cut into required payments into the public employee pension fund?

What about the get-aways, estimated in the hundreds of thousands or millions? What do we know about them? How many are recognized terrorists or convicted felons? Decades ago every newspaper in Chicago had a reporter who specialized in covering organized crime. Anyone digging into today’s Mafia? How and where are the illegal drugs transported?

Important public policy issues too often are reduced to reporting the political horse-race implications. As in, what candidates or party will pay or benefit the most? But even that was ignored for most of the past few years. Only now are a few outlets talking about it.

Anyone with a sense of curiosity or obligation or good news judgment probably can add more to the above questions, So many of today’s “journalists” aren’t, because they’ve set themselves up as the arbiters of truth. Instead of plainly, objectively reporting the news.

What the hell is going on in journalism schools…oops I mean “communications schools?” What are they being taught about professional and ethical standards that guided newsmen and women years ago? Is there a reporter or editor alive today who has the courage to cover that story?

Finally, why are my contemporaries so silent about this obvious degradation of a once-proud profession? Have they all died? Are they timid? Do they lack the courage to speak up. Or do they think I’m so off-base defending old school journalism?

Right—every aging generation asks “why can’t they [the young] be like we were, perfect in every way?” I’ll be accused of some sort of age bias or blindness. All I ask is for is an honest discussions of the issues raised here. It’s damn important.