Thread: NPR - Story today about Pres/Senate by Jennifer Ludden

Story source I write about in the below is here :
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=10976901


My letter (email) to NPR today:


Subject: Recent Story about Immigration 6/12/07
(President's Trip to Capitol Hill, in support of S1348 [not official, those are my words from memory] by Jennifer Ludden

Dear NPR and Omsbudsman,

I wanted to write to express my heartfelt 'thanks' for running the segment reported by Jennifer Ludden about the President's trip to Capitol Hill in support of 'immigration reform' legislation.

Factual / Reporting Errors:

1. The representation of 'pro-illegal' perspective was done by interviews with no less than 4 different individuals. The opposition: 1 person from one group, and a second with lukewarm feelings in the opposition.

2. Also, in the story, someone claimed that the current bill is 300 pages - this is plainly incorrect and should have been pointed out as such. In fact, the draft version of the bill that has been released into the public domain, is 700+ pages - I have a copy of the PDF file sitting on this very computer from which I am sending you this message. And, speaking of the text of the bill, that leads me to the next inaccuracy...

3. In the introduction, Ms. Ludden refers to 'immigrants', then later in the piece, to 'illegal immigrants'. Well, actually, if Ms. Ludden were to read the text of the bill - or any law on immigration, for that matter - she would find that the words 'illegal immigrant', 'undocumented immigrant', 'undocumented worker', etc. have no meaning. Not according to this writer, but in US LAW! In the text of the bill, references made to persons being in the US illegally are officially referred to as 'illegal aliens' and ONLY illegal aliens.

4. Lies via omission: some of the strongest opponents to the current 'immigration reform bill' are hardly exclusively confined to 'conservative Republicans'. Some of the strongest opponents include senators that are Democrats as in Byron Dorgan [D-ND] and Independents like Bernie Sanders [I-VT].

In short, I wanted to say 'thanks' for reminding me why I have chosen NOT to support NPR/OPB for it's very one-sided reporting on key or controversial issues. An open public medium of communication should not present an outright bias of such magnitude - is it any wonder, that NPR pledge drives are frequent and becoming more so???

Sincerely,

xxxxx

Slam Dunk!!!

Well done!

Excellent!

Great Job!

Hit em where it hurts!!