So which is it?

There was a time when a normal person could pick up a newspaper and just read the news. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Just to find the real news, a person these days has to do his own research among several different sources. That struck me hard this morning when I read the Washington Times and then the Washington Post which told the same story, but under two different headlines.

The story was about Prince William County’s decision to extend their authority for local police to check the citizenship status of people they arrest. The headline for the Washington Times was “Prince William stiffens crackdown on illegals” as opposed to Washington Post’s “Prince William Softens Policy on Immigration Status Checks“. They both tell the same story, report the same facts, yet they come up with two vastly different headlines.

So which is it? Was it stiffened or softened? As near as I can tell, it’s neither. The Times says;

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors last night approved an addition to its 2-month-old crackdown on illegal immigrants, considered one of the most aggressive in country.

With the board’s decision, county police can verify the immigration status of anyone they arrest, even for minor infractions such as speeding or jaywalking. Before, they needed probable cause to think the person was in the country illegally.

The Post writes;

The Prince William County supervisors abolished a key part of the county’s illegal-immigration policy last night by directing police officers to question criminal suspects about their immigration status only after they have been arrested.

In October, the Board of County Supervisors directed officers to check the legal status of crime suspects, no matter how minor the offense, if they think the person might be in the country unlawfully.

“The basic policy is fundamentally the same. We just changed the way it’s implemented,” Supervisor Martin E. Nohe (R-Coles) said.

I don’t know how two reporters can go to the same event, come away with the same story, yet two editors who don’t even attend come up with radically different headlines. It’s no wonder that people turn to alternative media sources.

Category: Illegal Immigrants, Media