Unethical Times

A child separated from her mother would cause grief, anguish, and pain. The thought of being separated from your parents at the border before immigrating into a new country is devastating. This sensation is something many immigrants have experienced while attempting to enter the United States. That trauma is not something children should have to go through. The image posted of the two-year-old Honduran girl crying in front of President Donald Trump by the Times magazine was unprofessional and classless because the magazine was more focused on painting a narrative instead of showing the truth (Leblanc, 2017).

Even though the magazine tried to show the problem of harsh border rules for immigrants entering the country, resulted in a separation between the parents and children. The lack of truth displayed is troubling because the young girl shown crying on the front page of Time magazine was from an incident unrelated to immigration separation. In actuality, that picture came from a situation where the girl and her mother were together, and a U.S border agent was in the vicinity (Lauricella, 2018).

Although Time magazine wanted to show the issue immigrants faced worldwide, the editor involved did not display an ethical approach because they used the child to paint a negative narrative against Donald Trump. Ultimately, I would remove the Time magazine cover featuring the young girl because it is not sending the right message to people even though Trump should be concerned about children separated from their families at borders (Leblanc, 2017). The deception of that photograph made it seem like Trump was the reason the girl was isolated and crying, and that was not the case. It makes me believe that attention on the immigration issue along with publicity for sales made Time magazine post this cover, and it is not ethical because it is not telling the entire story to the public.

Bibliography

Lauricella, S. (2018). Does the Photo Fit the News? The Ethics of Powerful Images in the Immigration Debate. Retrieved from https://www.mediaethicsmagazine.com/index.php/browse-back-issues/210-fall-2018-vol/3999232-does-the-photo-fit-the-news.

Leblanc, C. (2017). WHAT IS “FAKE NEWS”? Retrieved from https://fakenews.pressbooks.com/chapter/what-is-fake-news/.