Furore over Time magazine cover exposes bigger problem

THE striking picture was supposed to make US President Donald Trump look bad — but instead, it has backfired big time.

OPINION

A FEW days ago, you may recall, the internet was positively buzzing over the new cover of Time magazine.

The striking image showed President Donald Trump towering smugly over a crying toddler, as three words leapt from the page with vicious irony: “Welcome to America.”

Oof. Picture: Time

Mr Trump’s critics praised the cover as a perfect encapsulation of his administration’s harsh border policy, which was separating the children of illegal immigrants from their parents and putting them in makeshift detention centres. They called it “iconic”.

“It’s a telling image. It shows the compassion gap that exists between the Trump administration’s ‘zero-tolerance’ border policy and the real-life people that are affected,” wrote CNN’s editor-at-large Chris Cillizza.

“This is how this despicable human being feels powerful,” said singer Vanessa Carlton, in sentiments that were echoed by many other celebrities.

Welcome to America. We kidnap your kids. What a brutally honest and shocking Time Magazine cover. pic.twitter.com/QJvOFUsxDI

— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) June 21, 2018

POWERFUL cover from @Time.

Welcome to America.

Sadly, torturing children by snatching them from their parents - and then sending them off with strangers thousands of miles away is how Donald Trump feels powerful. pic.twitter.com/DZ68J1a666

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) June 21, 2018

Of course, this all seemed rather stupid when the cover was revealed to be deeply misleading.

The girl in question was not taken from her mother. Nor was she an asylum seeker fleeing violence. According to the girl’s father, her mother had actually crossed the border in search of a job, and they were allowed to stay together.

“It’s shameful that Democrats and the media exploited this photo of a little girl to push their agenda. She was not separated from her mum. The separation here is from the facts,” fumed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Time issued a small correction, clarifying the context of the photo. But incredibly, even after the facts have emerged, it has continued to stand by the cover.

“The June 12 photograph of the two-year-old Honduran girl became the most visible symbol of the ongoing immigration debate in America for a reason,” the magazine’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said.

“Under the policy enforced by the administration, prior to its reversal this week, those who crossed the border illegally were criminally prosecuted, which in turn resulted in the separation of children and parents. Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment.”

Mr Felsenthal isn’t alone either. Many of the people who crowed about the cover when it was first published remain defiant, arguing the image is symbolic, and therefore the facts behind it don’t particularly matter.

A sign protesting against the Trump administration’s border policy. Picture: AFP

And people wonder why Mr Trump’s “fake news” narrative has caught on.

In a sane world, the President’s whining about fake news wouldn’t be taken too seriously. It’s a self-serving tactic he uses against pretty much any media coverage critical of him.

But moments like this, when the media genuinely does promote something incorrect — and then has the nerve to defend that inaccuracy — make it so much easier for Mr Trump to get away with his own falsehoods.

The President just spent days lying about his administration’s border policy, claiming he was powerless to stop the family separations and only Congress could fix it.

In fact, he could have ended it himself, at any time, with little more than a phone call.

Eventually, under mounting public pressure, he signed an executive order.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of dishonest Time magazine covers, Mr Trump can’t even claim he has never lied on one — fake covers trumpeting his achievements have been spotted in several of his golf clubs.

This has been seen hanging in Mr Trump’s properties. No such magazine cover was ever printed.

Obviously, it is incredibly rich for a politician as compulsively dishonest as Mr Trump to criticise anyone else for getting their facts wrong.

It is just as hypocritical of Mr Trump’s critics to call out his inaccuracies and stubbornly defend their own.

Mistakes will inevitably happen, because reporters are human, and humans aren’t perfect. But there is a duty to correct those errors.

By refusing to apologise properly, Time has only damaged itself — and distracted from the urgent issue it was trying to highlight in the first place.

Mr Trump’s belated executive order has stopped more children from being separated, but about 2000 who had already been taken are still living apart from their parents, and it is unclear how — or even if — they will be reunited.

Overnight, the President advocated depriving migrants of any right to due process before being deported, a move which could very well violate America’s constitution.

“We cannot allow all of these people to invade our country,” he said. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no judges or court cases, bring them back from where they came.”

But we’re not talking about any of that, are we?

Instead of discussing what a balanced immigration policy might look like, Mr Trump’s defenders are busy reviving their fever swamp theory about the media conspiring to deceive the world, and his critics are again fending off accusations they can’t be trusted.

The endless cycle of dishonesty helps no one.