I'm flabbergasted.

In San Diego, "man bites dog" seems to still be operative on the media front.  The wall and migrant caravan "narrative" being promoted in Washington by the mainstream press is being repeatedly blown apart by good old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting in the local (and kind of lefty) San Diego presses, and it's starting to get noticeable.

The latest such instance, which I will write about soon, showed public and listener-supported broadcaster KPBS reporting that U.S. far leftists from other parts of the country are rolling into Tijuana, Sandalista-style, and egging on caravan migrants to illegally storm the U.S. border, which the migrants themselves wouldn't otherwise do, while local Tijuana NGOs are expressing disgust.  The mainstream press narrative has been to repeat the false claims of such activists that the migrants are just running for their lives from gangs as they border-storm and sneak in, and that the U.S. is "heartless" not to accommodate them.  Nope, not with that report.  Kudos to KPBS for getting the truth out.

It follows a report a week ago by local indy radio station KUSI, which reported the truth about the efficacy of walls.  CNN commissioned KUSI to discuss how walls work here in these parts, and it sent one of its best, Dan Plante, with longtime experience in the area, to give his report, and he did, reporting that the sentiment among local Border Patrol officers is that walls do work in keeping illegal migrants out.  CNN rejected that report because it doesn't support the "narrative" CNN feeds to the U.S. public about walls being useless (same as the Democratic talking points), but KUSI didn't back down, and word got out.  KUSI stuck up for itself – but what it was really doing was sticking up for truth-based journalism.

And then we have the San Diego Union-Tribune, which several times has broken the "narrative" with bits and pieces of significant truths in stories eventually getting way out front of the mainstream media's "narrative."  One instance: veteran reporter Sandra Dibble's first reports that the caravan campout in Tijuana was not pleasing Tijuana's residents and they were organizing groups about it on social media.  Nobody in the mainstream media was going to report that, but she did.  That broke up the mainstream press "narrative" that any opposition to migrants was purely the product of racism and xenophobia from whites up north.  It also put migrant behavior – bad behavior, ranging from ingratitude and entitlement to actual crimes – in the spotlight.  Another SDU-T reporter, Kate Morrissey, did some good coverage about how the migrant caravan was being dumped by its leftist leaders, leaving the caravan migrants to tough it out alone.  That killed the mainstream press "narrative" about caravan leaders being some sort of selfless do-gooders, because actually, they were creeps.  Some credit is due to the U-T for that one, too.

Now, the San Diego press, like pretty much all press, has a lefty tinge to it.  But we are seeing repeated examples of local reporters getting the truth out about the border over here, and I almost don't know what to make of it.  None of these press organs is related to any of the others.  There's no central figure directing them to report accurately against the "narrative."  There's no social hive; there's no peer pressure, as one sees in the cocktail circuits of Washington.  Perhaps the fact that they are local and know they won't be able to pull one over on the public as the mainstream press does, given the large numbers of people who know the deal, is what keeps them honest.  San Diego itself (where I am) is an isolated place – cut off from the rest of the country by a desert, an ocean, a giant and empty military base up north, and a border, and it only recently went blue, so there's still a lot of red in it, as well as no obligation to move in lockstep with the rhythms of Washington.  I don't quite know what to make of this pattern of truth-telling from so many unrelated sources and, better still, none of them backing down on it, other than to say it seems to be coming from a city that is different and maybe tries to stand out and make itself heard. 

This pattern of reporting of the caravan truth stands in sharp contradiction to the national media "narrative."  What we are seeing is something so new and strange that I don't know how to explain it – the spectacle of a press...doing its job.

One can only hope there will be more of it – because in this government shutdown war over the issue of a border wall, truth is the first casualty.  It doesn't seem to be happening here.