1. To take something out of context means to repeat part of what someone has said or written without describing the situation in which it was said, so that it means something quite different. Wikipedia explains take our of context to be when a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.

The White House round-table discussion with state and local leaders on California’s sanctuary laws was conducted publicly, with the media present.

Why do you think the major news outlets Associated Press (AP), Washington Post, The New York Times and USA Today all chose to falsely report on President Trump’s remarks?

2. Hundreds of news outlets use AP stories. Although the AP later corrected its false claim, what harm do you think the initial false headlines did to the way undocumented/illegal immigrants view President Trump?

3. Why do you think The New York Times, which is known as “the newspaper of record,” mislead readers into thinking that President Trump called undocumented immigrants “animals” and refused to correct their misrepresentation? Explain your answer.

4. Most people skim headlines before reading whatever draws their attention - and do the same on social media, where we scroll through our Facebook or Twitter feeds and click on whatever catches our interest.

A 2016 academic study of bit .ly links shared on Twitter to BBC, CNN, Fox News, New York Times and Huffington Post articles found that 59 percent of the links were never clicked. And another study of push-through news alerts to mobile phones found that “People click on the alert about half the time.”  So for many casual readers who don’t closely follow the news, all they know about what President Trump said or did is from the headlines and alerts of articles they don’t read.

When news organizations that are expected to be trustworthy quote the president out of context, they do a great disservice to our democracy and the legitimacy of the press. What would you say to the reporters and editors at these renowned news organizations that chose to misrepresent what President Trump said?