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In this paper, we consider how news stories about one area of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, further propagate notions of a region filled with people characterized as dangerously noncompliant with American ideals of citizenship, prosperity, and security. Using Ethnographic Content Analysis, we conducted a systematic analysis of Valley, state and national mainstream news media stories from 2010-2016 about health or health care in the Rio Grande Valley. Ethnographic research with Valley leaders, residents, and journalists completed the media analysis. We argue that the Rio Grande Valley is framed as both an unruly internal colony as well as a racialized periphery, due to its proximity to Mexico. We detail how these news stories are received and acted upon by seasoned local journalists who use their trade to offer different scripts, rooted in actual lives and experiences of residents. We conclude with alternative versions of the U.S.-Mexico border region from borderlands scholars to reflect on how dominant media representations of places and people can be weathervanes for political discourse that shape state and national action about 'the border.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]