This paper considers the social sadism that informs the mediated discourse on migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the UK media and public sphere. It will ask whether psychoanalysis has any additional insights to offer in relation to the xenophobic structure of feeling pervasive in media discussions of migration. Through a consideration of examples taken from UK broadcast news, it considers instances of splitting and projective identification in representations of the figure of the migrant, offered as a type of spectacle. In addition, the paper reviews relations of complicity between media, politicians and audiences as an example of perversion, in psychoanalytic terms.