The article explains that Fox News aired a segment on September 4th of this year, sowing protests outside a federal immigration enforcement facility in Portland. However, this outlets investigation found that some of the video clips shown were originally from the 2020 protests in Oregon after the George Floyd murder, not the 2025 demonstration. The article reported that Fox mislabeled dates, used footage from other locations, and framed the unrest as far broader and more chaotic than evidence from law enforcement records supports.
ProPublica reviewed more than 700 video clips from social media and compared them to network footage. Their findings show that arrests for violence, arson, and destruction in the Portland area were almost entirely confined to earlier periods as far back as July, yet, Fox News outlets reporting made it appear as though the protests in late summer 2025 were widespread and violent. The article highlighted that the TV segments and news articles used language to depict the city of Portland as a city under siege which was clearly not that case.
