Maria Teresa Kumar Urges Media to Blur Migrants’ Mugshots When Reporting from the W.H.: ‘We Are Absolutely Under Attack’

LEMIRE: “Maria Teresa Kumar, before we let you go, we want to get your reaction to something that just occurred. the White House has put up about a hundred posters of what they say are unauthorized immigrants who have been arrested for violent crimes. You can see them there. They put them up on the driveway of the White House. If you look here, that’s the West Wing just at the forefront, the Executive Mansion itself to the left. But what’s particularly noteworthy about this location is it is right directly behind the positions where TV correspondents do their hits from the White House lawn. So therefore, no matter what network you’re on, that includes MSNBC, if you’re doing a hit from the White House right now, those pictures will be behind you. the White House doing a briefing in about a half hour about what they’re doing here. Maria, your response to this — this image.”
KUMAR: “So I have to say one of the biggest challenges that we have with the deportations that that we know of so far, for example, with Kilmer Abrego Garcia, we don’t know if they’ve had due process. We don’t know if, in fact, these individuals do have a rap sheet. So I would encourage those individuals that have that as a backshot to blur those people out. The job of journalism is to ensure that we are presenting the facts, that we are cross referencing. We know that PoliFact actually checked the Trump Administration because of an earlier picture that they released on Kilmar, recognizing that it was altered, that it was false, that they placed gang signs on gang signs, tattoos on him that — that weren’t real. And so I would really — the press right now, we are absolutely under attack. Our job is always to have our true north, to make sure that we’re presenting balanced news and making sure that we are not putting folks that are potentially in danger. And having that representation of those pictures in the background, we can’t allow that to be seen for us to carry the water of potentially innocent people. So I would encourage — I recognize live shots are tough — but I would encourage folks to actually make sure that those shots are blurred to the best of your abilities. We know better.”
LEMIRE: “Well said. Well said. And again, the focus here, doing the work, doing it well. As journalists, it’s never been more important. President of Voto Latino Foundation Maria Teresa Kumar, thank you as always.”