The Media Preys on Your Emotions
By Bethany Miller
In the modern media ecosystem, facts no longer compete with better arguments— they compete with better emotions. And emotions, when properly weaponized, almost always win the propaganda war.
Over the past few days, social media timelines have filled with a familiar kind of outrage: claims that federal immigration agents “arrested” a lone five-year-old child, supposedly dragged into enforcement action as proof of government cruelty. The story spread rapidly, amplified by headlines and influencers alike, before the relevant facts were established. Within hours, the Department of Homeland Security clarified that the child was not arrested, was not targeted independently, and was not removed absent a guardian. The same pattern unfolded in Minnesota with the deaths of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, both of which were immediately framed as unprovoked acts of federal brutality before investigations could establish what actually occurred. In each case, emotional conclusions traveled faster than verified facts.
The viral framing, however, had already done its work.
We have seen this tactic before. In 2018, a widely circulated magazine cover depicted a crying toddler under the headline “Welcome to America,” implying the child had been separated from her mother at the border. The image became an enduring symbol of supposed policy brutality until reporting later confirmed the child had never been separated at all. Corrections were swept under the rug. The emotional narrative, however, remained intact. The image had already entered the public imagination, and that was sufficient.
What we are witnessing now follows the same architecture.
A dramatic claim is framed with maximal emotional force then spreads to the social platforms optimized for outrage rather than verification. Context is withheld. Legal realities are omitted. Ambiguity is allowed to stand. When clarifications arrive, they are dismissed as callous or irrelevant, because the emotional verdict has already been rendered.
This pattern has become a defining feature of digital discourse. Legacy media leans heavily on implication rather than explanation, encouraging readers to infer institutional malice without supplying procedural facts. The headline does the emotional work; the details, if they complicate the narrative, are buried or delayed.
The same dynamic drove much of the public discourse in 2020, when emotionally charged claims surrounding BLM were circulated at scale, often later contradicted by official findings, body cam footage, or court records. By the time corrections emerged, cities had burned and policy decisions had already been made. The emotional activism was successful.
Social media accelerates this process.
When sensational, selective coverage breaks, everyone suddenly becomes an expert, and content that promotes toxic empathy over critical thinking is rewarded. Sharing the “right” story becomes a performance of virtue, while skepticism is framed as cruelty. Questioning a viral narrative is treated as evidence of moral deficiency rather than intellectual responsibility.
This inversion is especially effective among well-intentioned audiences. Compassion is a virtue, but when compassion is severed from discernment, it becomes a tool for manipulation. Emotional identification replaces moral reasoning. Verification is dismissed as indifference.
The result is a public that feels deeply while understanding very little.
What makes this moment particularly striking is how little institutional memory appears to exist. The same tactics that defined the BLM media cycle are now being redeployed in the immigration context with minimal resistance. The same visual language. The same selective framing. The same delayed corrections. And once again, the public is asked to choose between emotional allegiance and factual clarity.
A society that allows emotion to function as evidence will eventually lose the ability to govern itself rationally. When every viral image is treated as proof and every emotionally persuasive claim as settled truth, reason has no footing.
Propaganda today is simply toxic empathy. It does not ask to be examined— only shared. And that is precisely why it works.
If we are serious about truth, we must resist the temptation to outsource our judgment to viral narratives. The health of our public square depends not on how rapidly we react, but on how carefully and critically we think.
Bethany Miller is Managing Editor of The Conservateur. A South Asian American writer and photographer, her work delivers classy conservative commentary on the conversations of our time. You can find her on Instagram and X @bethanyymmiller.
