News media finally calls out Trump on his lies. It took children in cages to make it happen.

Bill Goodykoontz | The Republic | azcentral.com

Show Caption Hide Caption Outrage grows after audio captures kids crying at detention center An audio recording that appears to capture the heartbreaking cries of children being processed by officials took center stage Monday in the growing uproar over the Trump administration’s policy of separating immigrant children from parents. (June 18)

Maybe there is a tipping point.

It's certainly looking that way. Outrage over the Trump administration's policy of separating children from their parents at the border is clearly growing, and it looks as if the media are a driving force behind it. Social media, mainstream news media, you name it: Media outlets have finally gone all Howard Beale (no doubt because their audiences have). They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.

It may have taken the sickening treatment of children to make that happen, but better late than never.

Let's hope.

Finally, we seem willing to call a lie a lie — sorry, a falsehood if you're the The New York Times — something that's been carefully avoided since President Donald Trump first began running for office. Finally, we seem willing to look beyond he said, she said false equivalencies, the anchor that's been dragging down meaningful reporting for far too long.

Nielsen rejects criticism on family separation Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is rejecting criticism accusing her department of inhuman and immoral actions when it comes to separating immigrant children from their parents when they cross the U.S. border illegally. (June 18)

More: Trump admin's gyrating story on separating families at the border insults our intelligence

More: Today's talker: Do we punish the children at the border for their parents' crime?

Finally, we're saying what everyone has known for so long: Trump is lying. A lot. And it's hurting the country.

But will this newfound courage matter?

Trump and various administration officials have, in the past few days, defended the family-separation policy, blamed it on Democrats, said it was impossible to overturn without congressional action, justified it with biblical passages and denied it existed. Debate has raged over whether to call the chain-link-ringed areas the kids are being kept in "cages." The Border Patrol has acknowledged the accuracy of the word but is "uncomfortable" with it.

It's probably pretty uncomfortable in those cages, too, no matter what you call them.

For many people, this is just too much.

And how do they know about it? The media, of course.

The breaking point?

Trump can put a stop to the separations himself; there's no need for Congress to act. He's told this kind of lie before, but this time, the media are willing to call him on it. Why? Perhaps it's because it involves children, and everyone is rightly horrified. Republicans, who have sometimes complained about Trump's policies but generally voted for them, complained. On Monday, ProPublica released an eight-minute tape of children crying while being separated from their parents and family members (listen above). Sen. John McCain tweeted that the policy is "an affront to the decency of the American people, and contrary to principles and values upon which our nation was founded."

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas introduced legislation he says would help keep families together. Every living first lady has expressed concern; Laura Bush's opinion piece in The Washington Post put it best: “I live in a border state,” Bush wrote. “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.”

More: Separating families at the border isn't new. We've been doing it for centuries.

And, of course, by Monday night, that one clarion signal of desperation rang: Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, treating the truth like a piñata and their Fox News shows like a stick, doled out blame everywhere but at the president's feet. (The president's favorite show, Fox & Friends, had earlier led the fake-blame charge. Ann Coulter, on a Fox News panel Sunday night, called the children seen crying in photos "child actors," but it's best not to dignify anything she says with reaction.)

What's next?

Again, though, the question: Will it matter? Won't the Fox News-watching, MAGA-hat-wearing crowd continue to look past the lies, the distortions, the blame game and continue to orbit around Planet Trump?

Probably.

So what? Let 'em. This gradual media awakening won't solve all of the problems with Trump. It may not even solve this one. It won't convert the non-believers who think of "media" as a five-letter word more obscene than all the four-letter ones they know.

But it's a start.

Bill Goodykoontz is a film critic and columnist at The Arizona Republic, where this column first appeared. You can reach him via email at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com and via Twitter: @goodyk.