Trump wall construction damaged ancient carving, reports say
Ground artwork predates Egyptian pyramids, researchers estimate.
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Trump wall construction damaged ancient carving, reports say
Photograph: themondonews.com (embedded from source)
What this story says
- Border wall construction damaged an ancient ground carving called the Las Playas intaglio.
- Researchers estimate the carving is at least two thousand years older than the first Egyptian pyramid.
- The artwork is also older than Stonehenge, according to recent estimations.
- All six reports on the story came from NBC outlets, with no coverage from right-rated publications.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 6 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 1 of the 7 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .
Trust
42/100
Craft
45/100
Hype
20/100
7 sources · methodology
Thin on the right so far
None of the 6 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
Construction of the US-Mexico border wall under the Trump administration damaged an ancient ground carving, known as the Las Playas intaglio. Researchers' recent estimations suggest the artwork is at least two thousand years older than the first Egyptian pyramid. The carving is also older than Stonehenge.
What the coverage left out
None of the six reports mentioned the specific location of the Las Playas intaglio carving. No right-rated outlet ran this story.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 6 times, most recently on 30 Sept 2026, 01:15, and will add the sides that appear.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
5 rated outlets
- Four of the five left-rated reports led with the headline that Trump's border wall construction cut into an ancient ground carving older than Stonehenge. All four digests stated that the Las Playas intaglio carving of a huge fish is at least two thousand years older than the first Egyptian pyramid, according to researchers’ recent estimations.
Centre
1 rated outlet
- The single centre-rated report used the headline that Trump's border wall construction cut into an ancient ground carving older than Stonehenge. Its digest stated that the Las Playas intaglio carving of a huge fish is at least two thousand years older than the first Egyptian pyramid, according to recent estimations.
Right
0 rated outlets
No outlet rated right has run this story so far. We are still checking, and will say plainly if that does not change.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover Trump wall construction damaged ancient carving, reports say?
- Of the 6 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 83% are rated left, 17% are rated centre, 0% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 7. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is Trump wall construction damaged ancient carving, reports say left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 6 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of Trump wall construction damaged ancient carving, reports say biased?
- Trump wall construction damaged ancient carving, reports say is one event reported by 7 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting Trump wall construction damaged ancient carving, reports say?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered Trump wall construction damaged ancient carving, reports say?
- 7 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- What ancient artwork was damaged by the border wall construction?
- The Las Playas intaglio, a large ground carving of a fish, was damaged by construction for the US-Mexico border wall. Researchers estimate this artwork is significantly older than other ancient structures.
- How old is the Las Playas intaglio carving estimated to be?
- Researchers' recent estimations suggest the Las Playas intaglio carving is at least two thousand years older than the first Egyptian pyramid. This places its creation significantly before Stonehenge as well.
- Which news outlets reported on the damaged carving?
- Six reports covered the story, all from NBC outlets: NBC News, NBC New York, NBC Chicago, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth, NBC LA, and NBC Bay Area. No right-rated publications carried the story.
Read it at the source
7 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
5- Trump’s border wall construction cut into an ancient ground carving older than Stonehenge (opens NBC News in a new tab)
- Trump’s border wall construction cut into an ancient ground carving older than Stonehenge (opens NBC New York in a new tab)
NBC New York — is NBC New York biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Trump’s border wall construction cut into an ancient ground carving older than Stonehenge (opens NBC Dallas-Fort Worth in a new tab)
NBC Dallas-Fort Worth — is NBC Dallas-Fort Worth biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Trump’s border wall construction cut into an ancient ground carving older than Stonehenge (opens NBC Bay Area in a new tab)
NBC Bay Area — is NBC Bay Area biased? Our profile of this outlet
- Trump’s border wall construction cut into an ancient ground carving older than Stonehenge (opens NBC LA in a new tab)
Centre
1Right
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Not rated
1How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.
