For the last month, as Arizona debated and passed new strict anti-illegal immigration measures into law, the press has struggled to explain what the bill does, and how it fits into the complicated legal, ethical, and economic mosaic surrounding our nation’s immigration policies.
Some, particularly those who tend to support increased restrictions on immigration, have criticized elements of the press for being overly sensational about the bill’s impact. Here’s Fox’s Brit Hume, saying just that on Monday night:
I think this bill, when you get down do it, is so basically mild and all it does is authorize Arizona to enforce federal laws and make some federal crimes also state crimes. I just don’t think it is what it has been portrayed. I am bound to say in the annals of misrepresentation by the media this is really a bad case. This is a wonderful case study of the damage that bad reporting and bad analysis can do. It’s been terrible in this case.
What do you think? Have you seen reporting that inadequately explains the bill’s impact, omits important context, or that you thought was sensational? Whose reporting has stood out, and whose has fallen short?
Hume nailed it. The dominant left-wing media narrative is that anyone who opposes open borders and mass amnesty for millions or tens of millions of illegals is racist. That distortion has simply been applied to this latest development out of Arizona. Left-wing media elites have a lot more sympathy for illegals convicted of savage and brutal crimes than they do hardworking Arizonans or Americans anywhere else who are trying to protect their lives, families and livelihoods.
#1 Posted by Ivan Fyodorovich, CJR on Wed 5 May 2010 at 07:41 AM
Pretty bad, as expected. All the tough questions go to supporters of the law, while few tough questions are posed to supporters. The coverage has tended to portray Arizona as weirdly marginal, instead of a state giving a wake-up call to the rest of the country. Violence at illegal-immigrant rallies has been santized, as is customary at rallies supported by liberal-activist groups - 'mostly peaceful' is the euphemism. At Tea Party rallies, by contrast, reporters dumpster-dived for evidence to support the pre-cooked, and very outworn narrative of crazed racist right-wingers. The worst thing one can say about the performance of the establishment media, the one that contains members who hand out Pulitzer Prizes to each other, is that I could predict and write the stuff myself - the framing devices, the prominence given to this vs. that story, the persons quoted and quotations used - in advance. And you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, anymore than you can tell the difference between the obvious political views of Norah O'Donnell, Kelly O'Donnell, and Rosie O'Donnell. It's all media-political echo chamber chat and has nothing to do with the real situation on the ground.
#2 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 6 May 2010 at 01:06 PM
Pretty bad, as expected. All the tough questions go to supporters of the law, while few tough questions are posed to supporters. The coverage has tended to portray Arizona as weirdly marginal, instead of a state giving a wake-up call to the rest of the country. Violence at illegal-immigrant rallies has been santized, as is customary at rallies supported by liberal-activist groups - 'mostly peaceful' is the euphemism. At Tea Party rallies, by contrast, reporters dumpster-dived for evidence to support the pre-cooked, and very outworn narrative of crazed racist right-wingers. The worst thing one can say about the performance of the establishment media, the one that contains members who hand out Pulitzer Prizes to each other, is that I could predict and write the stuff myself - the framing devices, the prominence given to this vs. that story, the persons quoted and quotations used - in advance. And you wouldn't be able to tell the difference, anymore than you can tell the difference between the obvious political views of Norah O'Donnell, Kelly O'Donnell, and Rosie O'Donnell. It's all media-political echo chamber chat and has nothing to do with the real situation on the ground.
#3 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 6 May 2010 at 01:07 PM
Sorry for the double post above, and meant to say 'few tough questions are posed to opponents' . . . In view of the distance between public opinion and media opinion, is this evidence that the organizations in decline (see NEWSWEEK) have been marginalizing themselves, drawing from too shallow a talent pool in the sense that they recruit from MOTHER JONES and THE AMERICAN PROSPECT and THE NEW REPUBLIC and THE WASHINGTON MONTHLY, where staffers never really get taught to ask brutally tough questions of liberal organizations, liberal causes, and liberal speakers - and are also taught that you win prizes and get promoted by getting the goods strictly on their opponents?
#4 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 6 May 2010 at 08:32 PM
Yes, it's good to see these fringe liberal hot beds, like Newsweek and The Washington Times
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6401SH20100501
are collapsing under market pressure for being to politically left. I'll bet those commies at the Weekly Standard are next.
Come on Mark.
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 7 May 2010 at 12:41 AM
Thimbles, the Washington Times was always a money-losing operation. It was not intended to be a money-making publising enterprise. Same with The Weekly Standard. Newsweek genuinely declined, from a 'hot book' in the 1970s, to a publication such as I described above. The condition that changed was Newsweek's.
BTW, what's the deal on putting words like 'commie' in my mouth? Even liberal parodies of what they think go on in the minds of their opponents have liver spots and gray hair, like Robin Williams' attempts to talk like a white southern preacher. One of the reasons I hold liberal opinion in minimum high esteem is that it knows almost nothing about its opponents, to judge from the motives they attribute to them, but believe they do - and then pull out cliches and stereotypes that were simple-minded back in 1967 or so.
Again, you fail to really challenge my perception that Newsweek recruited from a very narrow talent pool (left-leaning DC-fixated think magazines) and that it shows. People who wanted 'hard' news went on to The Economist or The Week. People who wanted soft news already have had television, or the entertainmnet magazines.
#6 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 7 May 2010 at 12:26 PM