Depending on which media outlets you read, you will either believe one of two things about the 2,000 predominantly Haitian migrants who have moved into small town Charleroi, PA:

1. If you read only outlets AllSides rates as Left or Lean Left, you will take away that Haitian migrants end up in small towns organically via word of mouth and that the issue has been wrongly vilified. You will believe that giving people the opportunity to immigrate from violent and unstable countries is the compassionate and fair thing to do. 
    
2. If you read only outlets AllSides rates as Lean Right or Right, you will take away that the migration is the result of unfair collusion between the federal government, publicly funded NGOs, and private corporations who work together to unfairly disrupt American communities using taxpayer dollars — upending native culture and destabilizing towns without taking it to a vote among native citizens.

Nowhere is the difference in the PA Haitian migrants story more stark than in these two articles from City Journal (Right bias) and The New York Times (Lean Left bias). 

A “Troubled Place” or A “Quiet Place”?

While the Journal calls Charleroi “a troubled place” and digs deep into the government-funded NGOs and private companies that have facilitated placing Haitians in the town without consulting native residents, the Times calls Charleroi a “quiet place,” painting instead a picture of a town that has been wrongly thrust into the spotlight and received controversy disproportionate to what’s really going on. 

Both articles show media bias by viewpoint; the Times interviews a migrant who has been positively affected by the opportunity to come to Charleroi, while the Journal interviews a native, a father who says he was displaced. The Times employs bias by omission and slant, omitting the network of influential private and public organizations that coordinate to get migrants placed in these communities and making it appear migrants get to small towns only by word of mouth. Both articles use emotionalism bias by including personal anecdotes.

One paints a picture of a U.S. government using public funds to move in migrants, disrupt small-town culture and create unfair competition for housing and jobs. The other paints a picture of rightful, legal immigrants merely organically self-sorting into small communities, where they help fill vacant jobs that Americans aren’t taking.

Let’s explore the two articles.

The New York Times Displays Bias By Omission

Both articles paint wildly different pictures of how the migrants got to Charleroi. Reading the The City Journal article, it is apparent the The New York Times piece contains bias by omission and slant, because the Times paints immigrants as having arrived via word of mouth and does not dig into the network of NGOs and private companies that help to settle them, as the Journal does. 

The New York Times article was published on Sept. 27; The City Journal article on Oct. 8. The City Journal article notes the organization Jewish Family and Community Services Pittsburgh, a resettlement agency and publicly funded NGO, “help[s] migrants sign up for welfare programs, including SNAP, Medicaid, and direct financial assistance” and is funded in part by government grants: “[the agency] reported $12.5 million in revenue, of which $6.15 million came directly from government grants.” Nonprofits that receive federal funds also fund this NGO, according to the Journal.

The New York Times article does not go into how migrants find these small town communities specifically, and instead paints a picture of business owners in distress looking for workers, or migrants arriving via word of mouth. The Times interviews the president of a private food packing plant, Fourth Street Foods, who “said immigrants were working at jobs that he had been unable to fill with American-born workers. Entry-level jobs at the plant could be difficult, he said: monotonous work on a factory floor that must be kept cold — 40 degrees or under, to keep the food safe — and that fewer Americans were willing to do.” 

The Times does not investigate how the company and migrants get connected. It gives the impression that the issue is entirely word of mouth by quoting Getro Bernabe, a former member of the Haitian Coast Guard who the Times reports became Charleroi’s first immigrant community liaison last year. The Times does not ask Bernabe the extent of his job as a liaison, merely stating, “Mr. Bernabe said many immigrants had come to town after hearing from others about job opportunities and a low cost of living.” 

While the Journal also acknowledges word of mouth as a factor, it offers far more detail on migrants ending up in Western PA, including the role of staffing agencies, stating:

“In Charleroi, the Haitians are, above all, a new supply of inexpensive labor. A network of staffing agencies and private companies has recruited the migrants to the city’s factories and assembly lines. While some recruitment happens through word-of-mouth, many staffing agencies partner with local nonprofits that specialize in refugee resettlement to find immigrants who need work.”

The Journal then goes up the chain even further. While The New York Times interviewed the president of Fourth Street Foods, the Journal also interviewed Chris Scott, the CEO and COO of Fourth Street Barbeque, the legal name of the firm that does business as Fourth Street Foods. The Journal writes, “Many of these workers are not directly employed by Fourth Street Foods. Instead, according to Scott, they are hired through staffing agencies, which pay workers about $12 an hour for entry-level food-processing roles and bill Fourth Street Foods over $16 per hour to cover their costs, including transportation and overhead."

The Journal points to three staffing agencies—Wellington Staffing Agency, Celebes Staffing Services, and Advantage Staffing Agency— as “key conduits for labor in the city.”

The New York Times article does not explore how migrants find housing in the small town, either. The Journal does; it states David Barbe, owner of Fourth Street Foods, acquired and renovated homes to house his immigrant workforce:

“A property search for David Barbe and his other business, DB Rentals LLC, shows records of more than 50 properties, many of which are concentrated on the same streets.”

Both Articles Show Bias By Viewpoint, Emotionalism

Both articles show bias by viewpoint, a type of media bias that reveals which viewpoints the editor finds most important and can serve to give the reader very different takeaways. The articles also both employ emotionalism, a type of media bias that slants the reader’s view by focusing on heart-wrenching or emotional aspects of a story that are deeply personal. While there is nothing inherently wrong with focusing on these aspects of a story, doing so in an unbalanced way can give the reader a slanted, one-sided takeaway.

For instance, the Journal chooses to interview a single father who claims his family was displaced by the food packing company’s project when it purchased the rental home he lived in to house migrant workers:

“After the initial [property] purchases, Barbe required some of the existing residents to vacate to make room for newcomers. A single father, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was forced to leave his home after it was sold to DB Rentals LLC in 2021. “[W]e had to move out [on] very short notice after five years of living there and being great tenants,” he explained. Afterward, a neighbor informed him that a dozen people of Asian descent had been crammed into the two-bedroom home. They were “getting picked up and dropped off in vans.”

“My kids were super upset because that was the house they grew up in since they were little,” the man said. “It was just all a huge nightmare.”

The Journal, to its credit, does somewhat balance this with an interview with Scott, quoting him as saying Fourth Street Foods was “scrambling” to find additional workers. But it does not interview any migrants themselves. [EDITOR'S NOTE Oct. 15, 2024: The Journal reached out to AllSides letting us know that 2 days after this piece was published, the Journal published a piece interviewing a Haitian migrant on a variety of topics. You can read that here.]

The New York Times does not interview anyone who was displaced or negatively affected by migration. It instead interviews a migrant, a high school senior named Joeby Charlecin. It notes that he is grateful to have escaped the “frightening conditions in his homeland [that] made his family feel that staying there was untenable.”

The Times also interviews “those in town who have welcomed the change with open arms,” including Amy Nelson, an assistant principal. The Times includes emotional details, such as how Nelson took in a 6-year-old Haitian girl whose mother died of cancer shortly after they immigrated:

“Ms. Nelson said the girl quickly became part of her family, even though she struggles with the trauma of the journey to America and her mother’s death.

The girl has had to learn not to gorge herself after years of going without enough food, she said, and Ms. Nelson has had to learn how to braid her hair.”

Both Articles Wrap Up With Vastly Different Conclusions

Both articles conclude very differently. The Times article wraps up with Nelson saying recent talk about immigrants makes her “nervous”:

“Charleroi has always been a close-knit town, almost to a fault, [Nelson] said. The recent talk about the immigrants — nationally and locally — has made her nervous, especially since one is now a member of her family.

Sometimes, she said, after a day of seeing the children at school managing to get along, she thinks, “I wish the parents acted more like the kids.””

The Journal expands a bit further on the issue, in a more balanced way — though still slanted toward skepticism of migration:

“Since the beginning, America has been the land of migration, replacement, and change. The original Belgian settlers of Charleroi were replaced by the later-arriving Slavic populations, who are now, in turn, being replaced by men and women from Port-au-Prince…

…however, legitimate criticisms can be made of what is happening in Charleroi. First, the benefits of mass migration seem to accrue to the organized interests, while citizens and taxpayers absorb the costs….

But for the old residents of Charleroi, who cherish their distinct heritage and fear that their quality of life is being compromised, it’s mostly downside. The evictions, the undercut wages, the car crashes, the cramped quarters, the unfamiliar culture: these are not trivialities, nor are they racist conspiracy theories…

The key question in Charleroi is the fundamental question of politics: Who decides? …the people of Charleroi were never asked if they wanted to submit their borough to an experiment in mass migration. Others chose for them—and slandered them when they objected.”

Conclusion

If you only read The New York Times article on the topic of Haitian migration to Charleroi, PA, you would come away with the idea that an organic movement of migrants has been unfairly vilified and cast a harsh spotlight on an innocent and quiet town.

If you only read City Journal on the topic, you would come away with the picture that a network of interlocking, government-funded organizations is unfairly disrupting dying, small-town communities in a way that no one voted on.

The two articles underscore perfectly why it is so important to read news across the political spectrum in order to see bias, spot discrepancies, and truly decide what you think for yourself.

Julie Mastrine is the Director of Marketing and Media Bias Ratings at AllSides. She has a Lean Right bias.

This piece was reviewed by Andrew Weinzierl, AllSides’ Bias Research Manager and Data Journalist (Lean Left bias) and Henry A. Brechter, editor-in-chief (Center bias).