It’s happening again. Outside media with their liberal agendas are attacking our parish and the Town of Jena, creating stories to fit their predetermined narratives all designed to make us look like smalltown, racist redneck hicks who have no souls whatsoever.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to us by now. In the last 25 years, Jena has come under attack twice on a grand scale. The first occurred in the early 2000s when the Jena Juvenile Justice Center was thrust into the spotlight. The second occurred in 2007 over the Jena Six saga. Now, here in 2025, we enter the national spotlight once again all because we are home to an ICE detention facility.

These reporters fly in from all parts of the nation, already having their minds set on who Jena is based upon other false reporting they’ve read on the internet from those other two events. They stealth their way through town, observing what they want, trying to get interviews, secretly talking to residents or listening to others and every encounter is meant to reinforce the narrative they have already set.

It’s been 18 years since the Jena Six event, and those of us who lived through the national media invasion would do well to remember all of the deceitful encounters we had. When the first national reporters arrived in 2007, my dad (Sammy Franklin) and I gladly spoke with them as we tried our best to get accurate information to the world. That first interview turned out to be a hit piece on Jena and from then on, we didn’t speak to any other outside media.

From the time Mahmoud Khalil was first brought to Jena back in March, I have had many national media reporters call, email or stop by the office to try and interview me. They all seemed to want the same thing, tell us about Jena and what it’s like living with such a “controversial” facility as the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center. But they don’t really want to know the truth. They want ammunition so they can manipulate the information to fit their storyline. For the majority of residents of LaSalle Parish, there is nothing controversial about the facility at all.

Let me give you an example. If we tell them GEO is a great corporate partner, they turn it around and say we only like them because they pay taxes, provide jobs or give money to the community. Anything we say is twisted to fit their predetermined storyline.

How about another example? Last month, Alexander Sammon, a reporter from the online New York City publication Slate, stopped by my office asking to interview me. When I refused and explicitly told him I would say nothing “on the record,” he continued conversing with me and then, not only quoted me in an article he published, but he actually misquoted what I said. At the office that day, I told him the reason I wouldn’t do an interview with him was because he came here with an agenda. When the article appeared last week, he quoted me as saying I (me…Craig Franklin) had an agenda as I pointed to my TV that had FOX News broadcasting. Twisted, deceitful, unprofessional and certainly no journalism integrity.

It is these types of reporters that give journalism and the national media a bad name. Very few seek the truth anymore and gone are the days of unbiased reporting. Most are graduates from liberal universities who are taught to use their media jobs as a way to enact the social change they desire. They want headlines. They want the sensationalism. They want clicks and likes and higher social media numbers. And they do or say anything to get them. Including the demonization of one of the greatest small towns in America.

Here’s a lesson I have learned from being personally involved in these high-profile news stories in the last 25 years and granting interviews from outside media individuals: Research. Allow me to explain this, since I stated earlier that I don’t do interviews, but that is not entirely true.

As the curator of parish news, I feel as though I have some responsibility to provide accurate information to the world. If I don’t share the truth, then the outside world has no other source of information except the misinformation provided by those reporters bent on degrading our name.

I have agreed to two interviews with outside media since Khalil was detained in Jena. The first was to Victoria Albert of the Wall Street Journal and the second was last week with USA Today journalist Lauren Villagran.

Before I granted either one an interview, I had them provide me with links to their latest published stories. I read them all, because in their writings they disclose so much about themselves and whether they are fair and balanced or agenda- driven. Secondly, thanks to the internet, I researched them personally on social media and through internet searches. Finding out who they are personally helps to understand who they are professionally. These two passed my tests and the interviews were allowed.

I share this with you, our readers, to remind you to also beware of outside media. Before you grant an interview or even talk with them off-the-record (which we now know may or may not be off the record), do your own research. With the internet, anyone can investigate someone to find out if they are legit and if you want them to tell your story.

The good ones are far and few between. Just like me, you’ll wind up culling more than you agree to speak to. Most have their agendas, and it is not to showcase our parish’s low crime, great school system, our church and civic activities, our outstanding sports teams or even our hard-working citizenry. Instead, they will focus on how disgusting we are because we voted for Donald Trump, how terrible we are because we hold to traditional, conservative values or the fact that we are not totally humiliated that we have a facility housing ICE detainees in our backyard.

Beware of outside media!