Remember, the #muslimban was only supposed to be three months

Just a quick note to journalists covering the #MuslimBan: You are letting the day-to-day minutia distract you from the real story.

Remember what the original Executive Order said? Let me remind you:

When the original ban was first announced back on January 28, 2017, it was to block travel from certain countries in order to give federal agencies the time to review immigration procedures.

And this fact was reported by all the media, big and small. As reported by the Press Herald:

Trump ordered a four-month suspension to America’s broader refugee program. The suspension is intended to provide time to review how refugees are vetted before they are allowed to resettle in the United States.

Or here by the New York Times:

“Mr. Trump has said the pause is needed to re-evaluate screening procedures for immigrants from the six countries. “Each of these countries is a state sponsor of terrorism, has been significantly compromised by terrorist organizations, or contains active conflict zones,” he wrote in the order.”

And all this came from the original order:

To temporarily reduce investigative burdens on relevant agencies during the review period described in subsection (a) of this section, to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization of available resources for the screening of foreign nationals, and to ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists or criminals, pursuant to section 212(f) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), I hereby proclaim that the immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens from countries referred to in section 217(a)(12) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1187(a)(12), would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants and nonimmigrants, of such persons for 90 days from the date of this order (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas).

And what was it that these agencies should do? Well, the federal agencies were due to submit detailed reviews within a given timeframe:

As Trump ordered:

(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall submit to the President a report on the results of the review described in subsection (a) of this section, including the Secretary of Homeland Security’s determination of the information needed for adjudications and a list of countries that do not provide adequate information, within 30 days of the date of this order. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide a copy of the report to the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence.

(e) After the 60-day period described in subsection (d) of this section expires, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall submit to the President a list of countries recommended for inclusion on a Presidential proclamation that would prohibit the entry of foreign nationals (excluding those foreign nationals traveling on diplomatic visas, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visas, C-2 visas for travel to the United Nations, and G-1, G-2, G-3, and G-4 visas) from countries that do not provide the information requested pursuant to subsection (d) of this section until compliance occurs.

Right?

So this was on January 27th, which means that on February 27th, the Federal agencies should have reported back to Trump with their recommendations.

In other words, the initial review should already be done (!!), unless the US government completely failed to do what they were told.

Mind you, just because a federal court declares that the travel ban itself is illegal, this doesn’t mean that the Secretary of Homeland Security shouldn’t continue working on this review.

So think about how weird this is.

Why did Trump then issue another Executive Order ordering a review (this time within 20 days), and calling for another 90 days of travel ban … when the review should already have been delivered back in February?

As he writes in the 2nd Executive Order:

(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall submit to the President a report on the results of the worldwide review described in subsection (a) of this section, including the Secretary of Homeland Security’s determination of the information needed from each country for adjudications and a list of countries that do not provide adequate information, within 20 days of the effective date of this order. The Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide a copy of the report to the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Director of National Intelligence.

c) To temporarily reduce investigative burdens on relevant agencies during the review period described in subsection (a) of this section, to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization of available resources for the screening and vetting of foreign nationals, to ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists, and in light of the national security concerns referenced in section 1 of this order, I hereby proclaim, pursuant to sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), that the unrestricted entry into the United States of nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen would be detrimental to the interests of the United States. I therefore direct that the entry into the United States of nationals of those six countries be suspended for 90 days from the effective date of this order, subject to the limitations, waivers, and exceptions set forth in sections 3 and 12 of this order.

You see what the real problem is here?

Why is the Secretary of Homeland Security asked to do something he was also asked to do back in January, and should have completed and reported to Trump in February?

Did they not do the review? I mean, if reviewing immigration procedures is so important to Trump, surely they would have continued to do the review even though the actual travel ban wasn’t in place.

Many people work at the Homeland security (240,000 of them), and those who approve visas etc. wouldn’t be the same people as those conducting this review anyway.

This doesn’t add up.

But my point with this article isn’t to talk about the executive orders, but instead about the focus of the media.

One of the biggest problems we have with news in general today is that journalists are so caught up by the things that are happening at the moment that we forget to take that all important step back to look at the big picture.

When Trump issued this second Executive Order, almost all the articles focused on what was happening right there and then, but I have seen no journalist ask:

“Hey, wait-a-minute, Mr. President. You asked Homeland Security to provide you with a review on Jan 27th, and told them they had 30 days to do it in …which means this review should already be on your desk right now.”

“Why are you asking them to do the same job again? Didn’t they do the first review? Don’t you already know what the review said?”

“Why do we need a second Executive Order, and another travel ban, to give your federal agencies time to do a job they should already have completed?”

This is what we should have done as journalists, but we focused on just the moment, which has actually allowed Trump to get away with it.

Mind you, this is also important for all the reporting that is to come. Because, once again, Trump’s 2nd Executive Order has been struck down by the federal courts (this time by two of them).

But again, this shouldn’t stop Homeland Security from doing their job. They still have to submit a review to Trump.

So think about what happens in the months ahead. Trump can react to this latest obstacle in three ways.

1. He can drop the whole thing, which would be the only thing that makes sense since (remember) he supposed to already have the review on his desk.
2. He can write a 3rd Executive Order, which would make no sense, because by the time that is done, we would already be three months away from the deadlines of the original review.
3. He can take the whole thing to the Supreme Court, which would make even less sense, because it might take months for them to look into the whole thing …which, again, means that this ‘temporary ban’ would no longer be needed … because, again, surely by then, Homeland Security would be finished what they should have finished back in February.

And as journalists, we must keep our focus on this ball and not be distracted by whatever that is happening right now. The review should already be done! This supposed need for a travel ban no longer exists. We cannot allow Trump to just repeat using the same argument without asking why Homeland Security apparently hasn’t done the job yet. This argument is no longer valid.

As journalists, if all we do is to report what Trump is doing today, we are actually helping him distract the public from the fact that what he is asking for is already on his desk (or should be).

We are helping him mislead the public, and we need to stop doing this. We need to always take that step back and say:

“Wait-a-minute… Something’s wrong here!”

Mind you, there is also a second very important story here, which is whether the President (or leader of any country) should be allowed to openly discriminate against entire populations of people (based on their religion, origin, skin color, etc.), or whether people have the right to be judged as individuals.

There is a human rights issue a stake here, and not just in the US.

We have all heard about the stories of how people have been detained (even when the ban wasn’t in place) merely because they looked slightly Muslim (including journalists).

This is obviously something we must cover and question.

But, most news stories don’t really do that either, because, again, most journalists are so caught up by the day-to-day minutia that we never take that step back.

We see a lot of articles about what is happening right now, or what someone said, or what Trump’s latest tweet attacked. But I see very few stories that provide people with the big picture, or that raises the more fundamental questions. Instead, most of what I see is that news is being reported as if the world is just one big reality TV show.

And, as a media analyst, when I look at the surveys about how the public feels about the media and how we cover issues, etc., I see a very strong call from the public to focus on the bigger picture rather than “OMG, look what happened just two minutes ago”.

We are not fulfilling our role as the Fourth Estate.