Framing the Border: How CNN and Fox News Cover Trump and Immigration

By: Tiasia Saunders, Computational Journalism

This project is a comparative newspaper analysis of CNN, a left-leaning news outlet and Fox News, a right-leaning news outlet for the term of 'trump and immigration.'

Fox News:

Founded in October of 1996, by media mogul Rupert Murdoch
Purpose: To cater to a conservative audience and provide counterpoint to what was perceived as liberal bias
Fox News aimed to provide "fair and balanced" news coverage became known for its right-leaning commentary and opinion shows.
According to AllSides media chart, Fox News is lean-right and according to Biasly's media chart, it is very right

CNN Wire:

Founded in June 1980, by Ted Turner
Purpose: To revolutionize news media by making news immediate, constant, and global, rather than restricted to fixed TV times.
CNN Wire: A news service that provides written, real-time reports produced by CNN journalists, offering quick updates, summaries, and full text stories for partner news outlets and publications.
It was the first 24-hour cable news network and regcoginzed for its global outreach
According to AllSides media chart, CNN is lean-left and according to Biasly it is very left

Donald Trump's Position on Immigration:

Key Points on Donald Trump's Immigration Policies:

On the first day of his second presidency, Trump signed 10 executive orders targeting immigration law and policy, signaling a renewed hardline approach.
Resumed major border wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border and increased funding for border security operations to reduce illegal crossings.
Reinstated and strengthened stricter asylum rules, including “Remain in Mexico”-style policies, requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims were processed in U.S. courts.
Expanded ICE interior enforcement, prioritizing large-scale deportation operations targeting undocumented immigrants with criminal records and recent border crossers.
Implemented policies aimed at limiting legal immigration pathways, including tightening visa programs and increasing scrutiny of immigration petitions.
Promoted public messaging framing immigration as a national security and economic issue, reinforcing his administration’s emphasis on enforcement over integration.

Data Retrival/ Limitations:

The data was retrieved from NexisUni, an online academic research database
The data was searched with the key terms 'trump and immigration' and was filtered for English newspapers in the United States
It was filtered further for CNN Wire and Fox News from the period of January 20th, 2025 (start of Trump's second presidency) until November 11,2025 (the starting data of the data retrieval)
It was 2811 total articles, upon preliminary analysis there were 201 articles. So, these were eliminated and total was 2,610
The data was retrieved over a period of 5 days (500 full-text articles and 1000 metadata of articles per day)
During organization of data in Visual Studio Code (data analysis), it produced two datasets

Final Index: A dataset containing article metadata and it includes the following columns: filename,index, title, published_date, published_location, publication, publication_type, length, section, word_count, countries, byline, cite, company, headline, hlead, publication.1, and publication_type,1,
Articles DF: A dataset with articles text, by sentence, and it includes the following columns: filename, sentence, index, title, published_date, publication_location, publication, publication_type, length, section, word_count, byline headline, hlead, publication.1, publication_type.1, filepath

Google Colab was used for BERT sentiment analysis
Pheonix Code was used for final project presentation

Data Preliminary Analysis:

Number of Articles on Trump and Immigration by News Source

There are 1377 CNN Wire articles and 1233 Fox News articles.
Both outlets dedicated substantial coverage to the topic, suggesting it was a high-priority issue across different media perspectives.
The relatively similar number of articles indicates that the topic received broad attention regardless of political leaning, although slight differences in volume might reflect editorial focus or audience interest.

Data Preliminary Analysis:

Monthly Trump and Immigration Articles by News Source :

CNN Wire consistently published more articles than Fox News for most months, though the difference varies month to month.
Both sources show coverage peaks in April and June, with CNN reaching the highest monthly article count (~170 articles).
Fox News coverage catches up to CNN in July and October, briefly surpassing CNN in July (~152 vs ~112 articles).
Despite fluctuations, both outlets maintain regular coverage throughout the year, showing the topic’s sustained newsworthiness.

Word Clouds:

CNN's unique words emphasize institutional/public-policy terms (e.g., administration, immigration, federal, court, law, department), which points to more coverage framed around institutions and legal/policy issues.
Fox's unique words skew toward conversational and media-style tokens (e.g., going, know, think, clip, video, right) and include host names like gutfeld and watters, indicating more commentary/clip-driven content.
Both outlets prominently feature political actors and generic tokens (e.g., trump, president, people, news, new, said), but their emphasis and style differ.

Sentiment Analysis

Both CNN Wire (1203) and Fox News (968) publish far more negative than positive articles about your topic.
CNN Wire has the highest number of negative-sentiment articles among the two outlets.
Fox News, while also skewed negative, has a relatively larger share of positive-sentiment articles (265) compared with CNN Wire (174).
The disparity (negative vs. positive) is wider for CNN Wire than for Fox News, suggesting CNN’s coverage was more negative overall.

Sentiment Word Breakdown

Positive and Negative Sentiment:

CNN Wire
- Focus appears to be on political context, the administration, and immigration.
Fox News
- More emphasis on action-oriented or conversational words (going, think, like) compared with CNN.

General Observations:

Trump dominates all four categories.
CNN Wire uses more formal/political words; Fox News includes more conversational/action words.
The word patterns suggest both outlets skew negative, but the framing differs.

Topic Modeling Results

CNN Wire Topics

Government & Politics

This topic focuses on national and state political activities, including legislation, government funding, presidential actions, and congressional affairs. Keywords include: house, states, government, funding, president, senate, republicans, federal, tax, democrats.

Immigration Enforcement

This topic captures news related to immigration policies, ICE enforcement, and legal proceedings around immigration. Keywords include: federal, ice, enforcement, law, city, people, agents, national, administration, president.

Administration Data

This topic covers government reports, administrative data releases, and workforce statistics. Keywords include: federal, according, workers, data, administration, told, people, 000, government, garcia.

President & Economy

This topic focuses on presidential decisions affecting economic issues such as tariffs, economic policy, and government programs. Keywords include: president, new, tariffs, people, year, house, just, going, administration, democrats.

Courts & Law

This topic includes judicial actions, court rulings, and legal matters involving the federal government. Keywords include: court, administration, judge, case, federal, department, government, order, justice, law.

Fox News Topics

Opinion Shows

This topic captures coverage from opinion-driven shows and hosts, reflecting commentary on current events. Keywords include: gutfeld, watters, cain, unidentified, perino, tarlov, ve, jesse, laughter, oh.

Political Correspondents

This topic includes reporting from political correspondents on domestic and international issues. Keywords include: baier, tonight, correspondent, bret, iran, voice, white, administration, israel, federal.

Government & Business

This topic focuses on intersections between politics, government policy, and business developments. Keywords include: ve, maccallum, government, ll, administration, musk, biden, court, elon, tariffs.

Regional Reporting

This topic highlights localized news coverage in specific regions, including local politics and events. Keywords include: gallagher, trace, ve, california, unidentified, corke, ice, night, watch, ll.

Opinion & Politics

This topic combines political commentary and opinion, often reflecting partisan perspectives. Keywords include: ingraham, hannity, ve, party, biden, ice, ll, state, city, york.

CNN Wire: The top topic is Immigration Enforcement (28.8%), followed by President and Economy (24.8%) and Courts and Law (20.6%). This indicates that CNN Wire emphasizes policy and legal aspects of immigration and administration actions. Their coverage is more issue- and fact-based, highlighting federal enforcement, legal implications, and presidential decisions.
CNN Wire seems to frame immigration within enforcement and legal contexts, which may involve reporting on ICE actions, border policies, or court rulings.
Fact- and policy-driven, highlighting enforcement, presidential actions, and legal matters.

Fox News: The top topic is Opinion Shows (23.4%), followed by Opinion and Politics (22.5%) and Government and Business (21.1%). This suggests that Fox News emphasizes opinion-driven content, political commentary, and broader political/business angles rather than strictly reporting policy details.
Fox News frames political topics, including immigration, through commentary or partisan interpretation, likely reflecting more subjective or analysis-heavy reporting.
Fox News: Commentary- and opinion-heavy, focusing on political interpretation and analysis, likely shaping audience perception rather than just reporting events.

Conclusions

Differences in Coverage Focus: CNN Wire emphasizes policy, legal enforcement, and administrative actions, while Fox News prioritizes opinion-driven and political commentary.
Approach to Immigration Topics: CNN frames immigration through legal and enforcement lenses, highlighting ICE actions and court rulings, whereas Fox frames immigration within political discourse, emphasizing analysis and partisan perspectives.
Impact on Audience Perception: CNN provides a factual understanding of administration actions, while Fox shapes audience perception through opinion and commentary.
Visual Representation Reinforces Findings: Topic modeling charts show CNN’s largest proportion (28.8%) is policy-focused, while Fox’s largest proportion (23.4%) is opinion-focused, illustrating editorial differences.
Overall Implication: Both outlets cover Trump and immigration, but CNN leans toward factual reporting and enforcement analysis, while Fox leans toward commentary and political framing, affecting public understanding of these issues.