Submitted by jonathan on Wed, 2009-10-21 12:07

* Media Justice
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* Media Literacy/Bias
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* Newswire

by Paul Reyes, USA Today

This week, in a nod to Hispanic Heritage Month, CNN will premiere a two-night, four-hour Latino in America. The documentary purports to thoroughly examine the Hispanic experience. We'll see. After a recent Los Angeles preview of the special, the first question from the audience came from Real Women Have Curves screenwriter Josefina Lopez. She asked whether Lou Dobbs, CNN's self-declared immigration expert, was featured or mentioned in the documentary. The answer was no, that Dobbs was just one voice on CNN.

Dobbs might be just one voice, but if CNN expects to earn its proclamations as the "most trusted name in news," it needs to, if not take on Dobbs by name, at least take on the very falsehoods he spreads. So outrageous have Dobbs' claims become that Hispanic advocacy groups have launched a website — dropdobbs.com — to push CNN to remove him.

The Latino backlash against Dobbs is overdue. Over time, he has falsely claimed that illegal immigrants were responsible for an outbreak of leprosy, and that they make up one-third of all inmates in the prison system.This year, he termed the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce "an organization that is interested in ... Mexico's export of drugs and illegal aliens to the United States." He later apologized for this remark.

What I've found most offensive about Dobbs is that he gives extremists a mainstream platform. He often cites as a source the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group. He cites Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for his mass immigration arrests and tough treatment of prisoners, as "a model for the whole country." The White House recently stripped Arpaio of some of his immigration authority because of alleged racial profiling.

I don't think Dobbs is a racist. His wife is Mexican-American.He simply latched on to illegal immigration as a populist issue and then irresponsibly ran with it. Now Dobbs is playing the victim, saying: "(The groups) ask CNN to fire me because I oppose illegal immigration. ... The last thing they want is a First Amendment, where people can express themselves."

Dobbs certainly has a right to his opinions. But Latinos have the right to let the network know that it will be held accountable for its programming. The omission of Dobbs in Latino in America illustrates the quandary CNN faces in trying to woo Hispanic viewers and brings into question the trust it so covets.
article originally published at USA Today.

http://reclaimthemedia.org/media_justic ... _latin2143