It was a story any reporter worth his salt should have salivated to report -- a president of a sovereign state went into a drunken meltdown on social media, screaming about President Trump after breaking his own agreement to accept repatriation flights of Colombian criminals, couldn't stop himself from unleashing a stream of continuous gibberish and within an hour mysteriously returned to the scene robotically stating he would do as he had agreed to do earlier, accepting all the terms of President Trump's requirements on migrant deportations. He even retweeted Trump's statement himself as if he had been ordered to.

Oh, mother of all backtracks! All of this played out on real time on X.

But to watch the NBC Evening News, all you would get was this bland pabulum of Democrat/NGO talking points from Hallie Jackson:

My transcription:

Tonight ... and the latest threat from President Trump, after one country refuses to take some migrants in ...

[0:25 ]The president, threatening tariffs and more against the country of Colombia, after they rejected two U.S. flights carrying migrants. The new response tonight ...

[1:25]This is NBC Nightly News, with Hallie Jackson.

We are coming on the air with a new push on those immigration enforcement operations the president long promised, and new fallout not just here at home, but around the world. I want to show you some of the images coming in from across America:

In Colorado, DEA agents (points to blow-up mural of a DEA bust of 50 illegals involved with dealing drugs, then another of "federal agents" arresting more illegals in Los Angeles) ...

We're also getting new pictures like these of planes carrying migrants out of the country. Some of these flights sparking an international standoff, with President Trump tonight slapping tariffs on Colombia.

That's after that country refused two U.S. deportation flights, the Colombian president suggesting migrants should not be treated as criminals [unintelligible] here or internationally. [cuts to field report on illegal alien criminals rounded up] ...

[Gabe Gutierrez reports 2:15] Tom Homan is Trump's border czar. He's in Chicago tonight overseeing a major enforcement operation even as the deportations sparked international backlash, Colombia's president turning away two U.S. military aircraft with deportees, writing on social media "a migrant is not a criminal and should be treated with the dignity a human being deserves."

President Trump is now threatening Colombia with urgent and decisive retaliatory measures, slapping a 25% tariff on all Colombian goods coming into the U.S. and revoking the U.S. visas of Colombian government officials.

Look at how much information was either slanted or left out from the report.

Nothing about the fact that the flights had been approved by Petro, only to be reneged upon when the repatriation flights were in mid-air. Nothing about the nature of the Colombians being repatriated, who were indeed criminals in handcuffs, and transported that way given who they were, finishing up their sentences. Nothing about the initial cave-in by Petro after tariffs were threatened, which would have been available news for the report, let alone his crazed meltdown which also would have been available for them to report. All of those things were highly relevant to the story, but they went with the 'mean Trump, noble migrants, compassionate Petro' narrative instead.

Just mean President Trump treating innocent migrants inhumanely and Colombia's president nobly protesting it, no mention of Petro's flaming hypocrisy in allowing Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro to shove Colombian migrants across a bridge with all their possessions on their backs not too long ago without a peep from him which was hardly the "dignity" he supposedly cares about. And the claim that problems are happening with deportations "around the world" is ridiculous, too -- it happened in one country. Most nations in fact are falling all over themselves to stay on Trump's good side, and as of now, to avoid becoming the next global laughingstock like Gustavo Petro.

The lousiness of the report was revealed in full by journalists who actually know how to do journalism -- in the Colombian press.

Take a look at the front page of El Tiempo, the leading newspaper of Colombia at the time that NBC was reporting its story:

Some rough translations of the headlines for those who don't read Spanish:

First story at the upper left is on Trump's visa restrictions announcement, affecting Petro and his family. Second is a picture of the new foreign minister saying no one should panic -- obviously, they were panicking. Third one at the upper right asks the question of why Petro would do something like this.

In the next row from the left, experts were saying Colombia could not win in this confrontation, second asks who exactly was on those repatriation flights, then the new foreign minister from above, then Petro saying Trump's "blockade" prompts him to introduce retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports, then which Colombian products would be most affected by new tariffs from President Trump, with a picture of roses depicted.

In the third row of stories, there's an item about Petro preening about getting his visa yanked, saying, "First is the dignity of Colombia and Latin America." The rest are local stories, including a followup on Colombia's military defeat at the hands of drug dealers in Catatumbo.

In the fourth row of stories, there's an item about Colombian mayors preparing to travel together to visit President Trump and ask him to not hit them with tariffs, along with several local stories.

Serious journalism? Intelligent questions? Absolutely.

Here is the immediate morning after:

In the top row of stories, there's an item about how this 12-hour confrontation from Petro to Trump could have happened. Then there's a big photo of a fierce-looking Trump, obviously displeased at Colombia's clown president. The third item in the top spot compares and contrasts the flaming hypocrisy of Petro, hard on Trump, but soft on Maduro.

Further on down, there are items about the foreign minister announcing an agreement between the U.S. and Colombia, and China trying to take advantage of the situation, along with an array of local stories, many war-related.

Does that tells us all we need to know about what good journalism is, and what the idiocy we see at NBC is? The Colombians did serious reporting and put Petro on the hot seat, asking all kinds of questions about what was going on, as it was the kind of news that would affect them and their country. NBC by contrast did talking points.

I also looked at the headlines in Semana, another well-regarded major paper in Colombia and the coverage was similar -- pointed and pertinent coverage.

It all goes to show how poorly served we are by the mainstream media, which can't even get the facts all there in its televised reports, not because it's a bit more challenging to do so in television than print (reports have to be brief) but because they're promoting Democrat talking points. Instead of hearing about what a fool Petro was, and what Colombians of all stripes think of Petro, and how Petro lost big in his confrontation with Trump, they went with the Petro-is-compassionate-about-migrants narrative with every detail omitted and distorted from their priorities in their report. I don't even think those photos shown of migrant flights were relevant to the Colombia repatriation story or even the current events, and they didn't say where they came from.

Sounds like we are going to have to start learning Spanish to get real news. This Petro incident exposed just how incompetent the mainstream media is in the U.S. They had a very good story in front of them and they missed it. It's disgusting.

Image: Screen shots from El Tiempo front pages // fair use