Local Television News and Undocumented Migration: a historical and moral geography perspective of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands

: This article expands the conceptual framework of moral geography to analyze local television news portrayals of undocumented migrants and migration during the 1970s and 1980s in the Arizona-Sonora section of the 2000-mile long U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Using archival research and qualitative content analysis as methodologies, findings revealed the presence of three dominant themes in news reports related to undocumented immigration: 1) reporters portrayed undocumented migrants in stereotypical and negative ways, using terms such as “poor” and “criminal”; 2) reporters discussed the issue of undocumented migration through a nativist and anti-immigrant lenses; 3) reporters highlighted the presence of community activists involved in helping undocumented migrants. The distinct themes identified provide evidence of competing moral geographies that were being constructed on the ground and on-screen.


Introduction
On October 29, 1977, Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke paid a visit to Tucson, Arizona. In an interview televised on the local CBS affiliate KOLD-TV, Duke announced the Klan's plans to patrol the American side of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Lee Joslyn reported that Klansmen:
Intend to detain the illegal aliens until authorities can be notified to their whereabouts. It is believed that at least three or maybe even four dozen members will be concentrating on the state's southeastern border. And word is Douglas, Arizona, is where they plan to start ( JOSLYN, 1977).
A year later on the same station, community activist Margo Cowan refuted claims that undocumented workers were taking jobs away from Americans stating: I would challenge you to find young American Blacks, young Chicanos and heads of house holds that would work in laundries, work in fields, work in hotels, work in hospitals for a buck ninety-five an hour, or 50 or 60 hours a week (COWMAN, 1978).
Duke's and Cowan's diverging comments on local television news illuminated long-standing social and ethnic tensions along the Arizona-Sonora borderlands [1], and signaled that the issue of undocumented immigration was again becoming a growing concern for the public (FERNÁNDEZ; PEDROZA, 1981). Their statements also brought into sharp relief distinct ways members of different social and ethnic groups sought to define the region.
During the second half of the twentieth century, as television became the primary source of information, residents in border communities such as Tucson, Arizona, learned about a myriad of controversial issues, including undocumented migration, through local TV news. An investigation of how various border actors were portrayed on television can deepen understanding about areas of historical conflict such as the U.S.-Mexico borderlands where conflictive social groups have struggled over how a region is defined and who gets to define it (DAVIDSON, 2000;LOREY, 2005;MARTÍNEZ, 1988;MILLER, 1981;GONZÁLEZ DE BUSTAMANTE, 2012). Examining which and how select members of society construct meaning in a particular region can help explain the state of power dynamics, ethnic relations, and an area's moral geography, which can be defined as a contested space where ethical choices are made about "a particular people and place, and…also an 'internal logic' that belongs to a particular people and place" (OPIE, 1998, p. 242). As Taylor (2010) argues, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands was a place where "competing moral geographies" were play at the "edge of America" and Mexico's northern frontier. Using moral geography as a conceptual framework and qualitative content analysis of TV news stories as a methodology (ALTHEIDE;SCHNEIDER, 2013;STRAUSS and CORBIN, 1998), this article focuses on news coverage about undocumented migration to examine how local television news reports helped to both shape and reflect contested moral geographies of the Arizona-Sonora borderlands in the 1970s and 1980s -the post-civil rights and Chicano movement era (NAVARRO, 1997), as well as a period of economic downturn and growing public concern about undocumented migration.  , 1992-1993). The article answers the following questions: 1.Who did news reporters allow to describe "the morality and logic" of the region as relates to undocumented migration?; And,2. How did those who were given public voice describe the issue of undocumented migration and migrants? In answering these questions, the article pushes the theoretical boundaries regarding local television news journalists' role in disseminating, shaping and reflecting dominant ideologies about the U.S.-Mexico border region and those who worked, lived, and crossed the region during a specific period of time.
After providing a historical background of Tucson and the Arizona-Sonora border region during the 1970s and 1980s, the article explains why moral geography provides a useful construct and concept for this subject. It then turns to analysis and discussion of TV news reports. First, the signing of the Gadsden Purchase unleashed a tendency toward a politics of exclusion aimed at members of specific ethnic groups including peoples of Mexicanorigin, Chinese and Native Americans. Anglo and White settlers who moved into the region in the mid-nineteenth century began to assert power and reduce political, economic, and educational influence and opportunities for non-Whites as part of a process Sheridan calls "institutionalized subordination" (1986, p. 4). The second major historical force that has been in place since the late nineteenth century is the public's and politicians' recurring propensity to blame immigrants for the nation's economic and social ills. In the American southwest, Mexican immigrants have been the primary target of anti-immigrant policies and sentiments (BALDERRAMA ; RODRÍGUEZ, 1995;GARCIA, 1980;GUTIÉRREZ, 1995;GRISWOLD DEL CASTILLO, 1992-1993MARTÍNEZ, 2001). As part of public discourse, journalism provided an outlet for nativist sentiments as well as served to reinforce the policies of the White hegemony (STREITMATTER, 1999). The 1970s and 1980s provided a similar environment for neonativists to blame immigrants for the country's economic problems (GARCIA, 1980;WILCOX, 2005). In 1976, with the country in the midst of an economic recession, the issue of undocumented migration took on special significance in states such as Arizona where residents perceived to a greater extent than other people around the country that the number of undocumented people was increasing (FERNÁNDEZ ; PEDROZA, 1981). This study concentrates on KOLD-TV, the CBS affiliate in this market, because this station's news reports are housed and accessible to the public at the Arizona Historical Society (AHS) library in Tucson. Using KOLD-TV's handwritten master videotape logs, which listed each report on the tape, the author identified more than 50 videotapes that included news reports about immigration. From the 50 videotapes, 38 news reports were selected for analysis based on their length and their focus on undocumented immigration. Twelve shorter immigration related stories were eliminated from the study to include only those that were at least one minute in length. Longer reports allowed reporters to better develop the story and potentially include more sources, and therefore "packages" are more suitable for analysis. Reports were coded for the GUTIÉRREZ ; SCHEMENT, 1977;IGLESIAS, 1999). Through entertainment as well as news media, the region developed a reputation and image of being a place of danger, vice and violence, none of which was socially desirable or helpful in terms of building the area's moral character (BOWMAN, 2005). Domíguez-Ruvalcaba and

Negative Stereotyping of Undocumented Immigrants
In the 1970s and early 1980s, television, magazines, newspapers and even casual conversations fomented similar negative stereotypes to describe Mexican immigrants who entered the country "without papers" (MARÍN, 1997). Tucson TV journalists followed this trend and stereotyped undocumented immigrants in two ways. First, reporters frequently portrayed Mexican nationals as "criminals" who circumvented the law to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, and intended to "steal jobs from American workers." In visual terms, these "job stealers" were seen as poor and male.
Beyond blaming undocumented immigrants for the country's economic problems, reporters often labeled them as "social service sappers" by including statements (soundbites) that aired without critique or opposition. "Social service sappers" were characterized in one-dimensional ways as uneducated men and women on welfare who did little more than reproduce children. These stereotypes contradicted the research of the time that demonstrated undocumented immigrants did not usurp American jobs and immigrants contributed more to the economy than they received (SIERRA, 1987 Hernández, who stated through an interpreter, "She's very happy about the program because the children will be given an opportunity to stay here and go to school and receive the benefits that she didn't receive in Mexico" (1977).
The interview with Mrs. Hernández occurred in a small living room. She, her two young children, Vásquez, and the interpreter all sat on a couch. Shots in the report included close-ups of the children, such as one shot at the end of the report, which focused on the young boy's face looking down at the floor.
The second interview subjects in the report -a woman and man -asked that their names be withheld because they did not fall into the category of residents who  Fellner's report provided an example of the propensity of reporters to use dramatic language to describe a situation. Stating that immigrants "pour" into the country and that agents could do nothing to "stem the tide" of "aliens," the journalist painted a stereotypical image of a "wave" of people flowing into the United States. The historical and repeated use of these metaphors to refer to immigrants dehumanized the migrant population. Beyond the use of negative metaphors, the report included information that could not be verified independently.
As in other reports, only official sources were included. Out of the 38 reports Hanigan, while his brother was found guilty of violating interstate commerce laws.
The father, George Hanigan died before the first federal trial began.

Hanigan Brothers Fund
Douglas residents established two trust funds for the Hanigan brothers. The first fund provided the brothers money to pay for legal fees, while the second helped the family pay for living expenses, including the purchase of cattle. In October of 1980, Deborah St. George reported on the status of the second fund, which grew to a substantial sum. In the report, a resident, who was referred to as Stevens, handed And what the people are saying, they're speaking for America and how concerned they are about what is happening to our justice system and this complete, just casting a side the citizen in favor of, (pause) uh, uh, people that we don't even know (ST GEORGE, 1980). Duke's in that they created a distance between those people who have a right and just purpose for being in the United States and those who do not.
While pro-Hanigan groups worked to gather financial support for the Hanigan News reports that included on-camera interviews with Latino activists demonstrated that in addition to the judicial system, activists began to use the media (in this case, television) to make their voices heard. In addition, these reports helped illustrate the presence of distinct moral geographies in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands.

Douglas Boycott
On The boycott sought to persuade federal officials to begin to investigate the Hanigan case. Visually, the report began with shots of the Mexican side of the border, near the Douglas port of entry. Young children handed out informational fliers to drivers as, Cooper stated, "a sound truck delivered a bilingual message demanding justice and asking for support" (COOPER, 1977). Margo Cowan, Director of the Manzo Area Council stated the boycott was working, and: The point is that there's one section of the civil rights code that applies to people without papers, it applies to undocumented people. We want to make sure that the Justice Department in Washington knows that this is an issue that has struck very deep here in the Southwest and that that section should be applied (COOPER, 1977 in news reports, stories that included activists' opinions and statements provided a space for those who sought to speak on behalf of the undocumented.

Conclusion
Despite the inclusion of community activists in news coverage about undocumented immigration, TV news reporters tended to rely on the U.S. Border Patrol for information, rarely voiced the opinions or statements of undocumented immigrants, and generally portrayed immigrants in a negative light. By emphasizing the "illegal" status of immigrants and consistently portraying migrants as destitute, reporters contributed to a dominant moral geography that deemed migrants as "dangerous" and "immoral" vis-à-vis other Tucson residents. Through uncontested sound-bites from people such as David Duke, the public heard that migrants posed a threat to the "American way of life." These statements carried with them elements of racism and ethnic discrimination, given that most migrants who crossed into the United States from Mexico looked differently than the majority White population. At Results of this research suggest that TV news coverage during the 1970s and 1980s, broadcast a dominant version of reality, one that privileged Anglo points of view, and diminished the voices of migrants, who mainly were coming from Mexico at this period in time. Analysis of local TV television news reports reveals a complex picture of the Arizona-Sonora borderlands and its distinct moral geographies during a time of economic, social and cultural change. Beyond Arizona-Sonora and other parts of the U.S.-Mexico border, this study's approach could be useful for scholars interested in the relationship among media, history and inter-cultural conflict. In this study, reporter-generated themes about undocumented immigrants illuminated conflicting ideas about how the region should be defined, and who was allowed to define it -namely the Anglo majority, but not exclusively, given the presence of civil rights and Chicano activists. As a result of its ability to reach thousands of viewers at a time, television became a vehicle through which the moral geographies could be constructed, reflected, and contested on the air.

Notes
[1]The term borderlands is used instead of border to connote a broader concept of the border region; one that goes beyond the point of crossing from one nation to another. The word refers to both the physical as well as ideological meaning of the region.
[2]The title of the report, "Illegal Aliens and Carter's Amnesty Plan," represents the same title that appeared on the videotape. The slugs (titles) for all reports analyzed reflect those used by KOLD-TV staff. Quotations were added by the author.
[3] The author recognizes that an individual's surname, especially in the borderlands, is not the only indicator of a person's ethnicity.