Can the church and media make immigration stories enlightening? Part 2

By Marivir Montebon

This 2nd of 4 parts dissertation by Dr. Marivir Montebon examines how bridging the political divide of U.S. immigration is possible through Transformative Journalism.

Political polarization did not begin or end with journalists. Corporate media organizations, driven by ideological differences, business interests, and the appetite for audience capture, have widened the division by reinforcing the public’s existing political and ideological beliefs.

Marshall McLuhan’s theory of communication — “The medium is the message” — explains how the medium, such as media organizations, creates a message that is consistent with its ideology.

Polarization from the top

Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, in her book Wrong: How media, politics, and identity drive our appetite for misinformation, cited the role of media producers in creating political and ideological polarization.

In the mid-1990s, ideological sorting within the major parties deepened just as the internet transformed mass communication. Partisan cable networks MSNBC and Fox News emerged in 1996 because of this polarization from the top.

Since then, audiences have increasingly judged news organizations through partisan identity: many Democrats and Republicans label the same outlets as either trustworthy or biased depending on their own political beliefs. A 2018 Knight Foundation/Gallup survey showed that people judge news outlets’ bias largely through the lens of their own political identity.

Democrats tended to view outlets like AP, PBS, NPR, The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post as relatively unbiased, while seeing Fox News and Breitbart as strongly biased. Republicans, by contrast, viewed Fox News and The Wall Street Journal as unbiased and considered many mainstream outlets—especially CNN and MSNBC—as biased.

Independents/nonpartisan adults rated a smaller set of outlets, such as PBS, AP, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, as unbiased, but still saw several major outlets as biased.

The poll shows that perceptions of media credibility are deeply shaped by political affiliation, reinforcing broader social and ideological divides.

Disinformation further polarizes people

Young pointed out that divisive media production has given rise to the phenomenon of “partisan pundit” where pundits are the talking heads who appear on the news not to “report” news but to talk “about the news.”

It has become routine for media producers to assemble panels of pundits who argue about a topic, styled in an interpersonal “in your face” argument, that moves viewers to be engaged and increase their hostility towards the other side.

Pundits arguing on political issues have been elevated nationwide through cable news, intentional in its grand scheme of “nationalizing conflict-framed stories” instead of investing and reporting on complicated policy proposals that have consequences on local communities, said Young.

As a result, audiences make a choice to be engaged with these nationalized panels of analysts by watching CNN, MSNBC, or Fox, or they decide to tune out. Young concluded that the nationalization of this media production has resulted in the amplification of mega-identities and the public’s decline in engagement with their state and local politics.

Intellectual arrogance plays well in these panels, amid interruption and insult and eye rolls, and unfortunately, misinformation too.

A 2015 PolitiFact review found that nearly 60% of checked pundit claims on Fox News were rated mostly false or false, compared with 44% on MSNBC and 20% on CNN.

A study by the Reuters Institute Digital Report 2022 indicates that most of the audiences in the U.S. sorted as far right-leaning get their news mainly from Fox News. Scholars described the character of the sorted American audience demographics as predominantly far right, White, Republican, and Christian Evangelists.

What should journalists do?

Young proposes three broad responses.

First, journalists should practice democracy-centered reporting by refusing to reward identity performance, reducing conflict framing, and investing more in community-centered local coverage and public media.

Second, social media platforms should be more transparent about algorithms, ad targeting, and the data needed for independent research.

Third, citizens themselves must cultivate intellectual humility, resist performative partisanship, and demand information that helps democratic life rather than inflaming tribal loyalty. These steps, said Young, are not optional in a multiracial, multiethnic, and multifaith society that depends on pluralism and freedom of expression to remain healthy.

How about the Pilgrim Church?

This study also highlights the possible role of the “pilgrim church” in changing how immigration is discussed in the United States.

In Church and Migration: A Theological Vision of the People of God, Daniel Montanez argues that immigration should be understood not only as a political controversy but as part of the broader human story of movement, displacement, belonging, and hope.

That perspective can help journalists move beyond narrow partisan frames by drawing on the experience of churches, faith-based organizations, and ministries that work directly with migrants.

Including such voices in immigration coverage could introduce moral depth, historical perspective, and a language of human dignity that is often missing from secular political debate.

Montanez encourages writers to read migration through the larger narrative of Scripture and to see migrant communities not as outsiders alone, but as part of the life and calling of the church.

Sammy Alfaro in his essay, “Incarnation and Redemption: Jesus the Migrant,” noted that the story of Jesus cannot be significantly explained without the experience of migration informing his life, teaching, and ministry. His redemptive work stands in solidarity with modern-day immigrants and refugees.

The flight to Egypt, he writes, shows Christ’s solidarity with people displaced by fear and violence. He also presents salvation as holistic, linking the spiritual and physical, the personal and communal, and the human and cosmic.

For Alfaro, Jesus’ crossing of boundaries should move the church to identify with migrants and take up their cause.

This matters in the American context, where a large share of immigrants identifies as Christian and where many congregations already encounter migration as a lived pastoral reality.

Research has also found meaningful support among evangelicals for immigration reforms that combine compassion, legal clarity, and border responsibility. For that reason, the active involvement of churches and religious groups on behalf of immigrants may help soften political hostility and create more constructive public conversation.