Thread: Dobbs’ town hall format conforms to network’s definition

Dobbs’ town hall format conforms to network’s definition

By Wade Malcolm
Staff Writer
May 2, 2007

In its original purist form, a town hall meeting was an open invitation for all members of the community to gather and share their opinions.

However, that is not what you’ll see if you attend or tune in for CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” broadcast live at 6 tonight from the Penn State Hazleton campus.

With its live studio audience and seemingly diverse mixture of guests, the show and the off-air discussion to follow will look like a town hall meeting — and indeed network producers are calling it that.

But by the show’s format alone — guests are admitted into the audience by invitation only — it is not quite that democratic, critics and political analysts said.

The show’s host, Lou Dobbs, has been a vocal supporter of Hazleton’s illegal immigration ordinance and an opponent of groups favoring amnesty for illegal immigrants. Some civil rights advocates invited to the show fear the crowd will be partisan toward cracking down on illegal immigrants when broadcast from a city known nationwide for taking a local immigration problem into its own hands.

“If it’s really a town hall, the whole point is to open it to the public as first come, first serve,” said political analyst G. Terry Madonna, adding that pundits and politicians have changed the town hall meeting format. “But you’ll rarely see that anymore. They’ll go to a place where the backdrop and the issues favor them. They do it, more often than not these days. This is sort of typical than what you’d expect. As long as people are aware of that, that’s fine.”

But in an interview Tuesday, Dobbs, who calls himself an “advocacy journalist,” fiercely defended his “Broken Borders” programs as a balanced debate he carefully oversees.

“We make certain all views are represented,” he said. “I have more guests on that are pro-illegal immigrant and open borders than are anti-illegal immigrant and anti-open borders.”

Tonight’s program, for example, will include panelists from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens, two groups vehemently opposed to Dobbs’ opinion on immigration. In addition, producers of the show also sent out e-mails to some of Hazleton’s Hispanic residents looking to add diversity to the audience.

Wilkes-Barre attorney Barry Dyller, who was involved with the suit against Hazleton illegal immigration ordinance, was invited to ask a question on the show. He said the producers are aware that his stance on the issue is contrary to the host.

“I’m concerned in that there are no rules and there’s not necessarily a fair playing field,” he said. “I’m hopeful, in fact, that it will be a genuine discussion. I think it’s important that the country engage in a genuine and open dialogue about all important issues including immigration.”

One point of view will definitely not be present: the groups suing the city declined to send a representative to the show.

“I don’t think it is a format that’s conducive to presenting our side of the issue,” said attorney Witold J. Walczak of American Civil Liberties Union. “When someone comes with a strong, well-known point of view, that’s not a journalist. Lou Dobbs is an editorial writer at best, probably more of an entertainer.”

The concerns of critics aside, time constraints and television’s demand for sound bites also make it unlikely that the discussion will generate solutions to an issue so complex as illegal immigration.

“As events, they are psuedo-events; it is an event that takes place for the sake of its own presentation,” said Dr. Robert J. Thompson, director of the Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “Whether it is a half hour, an hour or three hours, no one is going to be any closer to solving the immigration problem in American. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth discussing.”

http://www.citizensvoice.com/site/news. ... 5154&rfi=6

It has to be by invitation only as an open debate in this country anymore turns into a riot, the thugs who try to take our freedom of speech away don't want to hear anyones side of an issue if it is in disageement with their opinion. Just look at what is happening in the colleges every time they have someone talk against open borders or illegal immigration.

We are not stupid ACLU and it does not have to have a solution it just has to get the attention of the public. Is this what your affraid of?

Was it "first come, first served" in Carpentersville too?????