10 hours ago
The Cap Times

Dear Editor: The first two paragraphs of John Nichols' Nov. 25 column remind me so much of today's media coverage of the immigration issue. Allow me to explain.

Several years ago I had dinner in Washington, D.C., with a former police reporter for a California newspaper. He said those who cover the immigration issue are "scribes," not reporters. What he meant was that whatever illegal immigrants and their advocates say, journalists will simply write it down verbatim and not ask tough questions normally associated with responsible journalism.

One question that reporters (and their editors) never consider is this one: Is it fair that while 20 million Americans can't find full-time work, the federal government is permitting 7 million illegal immigrants keep their non-farming payroll jobs in the construction, manufacturing, transportation, service and hospitality industries?

Our coalition also has, to use Nichols' words, "little taste for most editors, reporters and commentators" who comprise the "kept press" that devotes their time to carrying water for a business community relying on cheap and exploitable illegal foreign workers while throwing millions of Americans under the bus.

Dave Gorak

executive director, Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration

La Valle

Dave Gorak: 'Kept press' fails to question illegal immigration