Twitter Points and Laughs at Fox Contributor for Wearing Tactical Vest at Border

Twitter Points and Laughs at Fox Contributor for Wearing Tactical Vest at Border

Fox News contributor Lawrence Jones III has been down at the southern border to report on the immigration crisis currently overwhelming resources there. Thursday morning he tweeted out a most unfortunate photo of himself preparing for a live, on-camera hit for the network:

Ostensibly that is a tactical vest of the sort worn by soldiers in war zones. Which raised the ire of at least one reporter, NBC’s Jacob Soboroff, who has also spent a great deal of time at the border and has never played dress-up to do so:

The border being a war zone is exactly what Fox News wants its viewers to think, though. President Trump keeps calling the migrants crossing it “an invasion,” and that sort of fearmongering is central to the anti-immigrant worldview that the network pushes.

To be fair to Jones, he swore that the Border Patrol insisted he wear the vest while accompanying its agents on a ride-along. (Though, again, Soboroff swears that the CBP has never made him wear one; perhaps they care less about the safety of an NBC reporter than one from Fox.)

There is also footage another Fox News reporter filed on Thursday of himself helping CBP chase migrants around the desert without wearing a vest:

Several people also pointed out that the vest appeared to be missing any sort of Kevlar plate that would have protected Jones from anything more dangerous than harsh language, which seems to negate the point of wearing one.

But most unfortunately for Jones, he did inspire some really funny photoshop work poking fun at him.

And there were those who just took part in general mockery:

This would seem to be the biggest risk of participating in Fox and President Trump’s propaganda campaign to scare people with images of dangerous people flooding the border with crime and drugs: sooner or later, you only make yourself look ridiculous.

Gary Legum

Gary Legum has written about politics and culture for Independent Journal Review, Salon, The Daily Beast, Wonkette, AlterNet and McSweeney's, among others. He currently lives in his native state of Virginia.

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