Our
view: Hispanic Institute's boycott
of CNN over Lou Dobbs puts networks
on notice public won't tolerate
hateful lies
The
Hispanic Institute, a Washington,
D.C.-based nonprofit group, last
week launched a national boycott of
CNN, the cable news channel, to
highlight unrelenting and erroneous
attacks against Latino immigrants by
talk-show host Lou Dobbs. While we
aren't sure such an effort will be
effective and while by its nature,
it impugns other good programs on
CNN, we agree with the spirit of the
boycott.
We
applaud the institute for taking a
stand on behalf of the immigrant
community and calling on a network
to take responsibility for the
content of its programs. We
encourage other groups — whether
they represent minorities or not —
to let CNN and other news outlets
know that unwarranted attacks that
demonize a particular group of
people will not be tolerated.
If
the Hispanic community flexes its
viewership muscles and the boycott
succeeds in reducing CNN's ratings,
particularly for Lou Dobbs' nightly
show, officials with the network
might be inclined to get rid of such
inflammatory and dishonest
programming.
Similarly, we believe local groups
could put pressure on Tucson radio
station 104.1-FM, which airs "The
Jon Justice Show," a morning program
that repeats many of the claims made
by Lou Dobbs and other
anti-immigrant media personalities.
Lou
Dobbs, along with fellow CNN host
Glenn Beck and Fox News Channel's
Bill O'Reilly, has been behind much
of the anti-immigrant sentiment that
is gripping the country. Dobbs and
others regularly make outlandish and
erroneous claims. Among them: that
illegal immigrants are responsible
for a disproportionate amount of
crime, that they drain communities
of cash by illegally using social
services and that they intend to
take over the Southwestern United
States.
While there are some slivers of
truth in what Dobbs and the others
say — for example, children of
illegal immigrants do cost states
money when they attend public
schools — their claims were largely
discredited in a recent report by
the Media Matters Action Network, a
project of the Washington,
D.C.-based watchdog group Media
Matters for America.
In
a May 21 report, "Fear & Loathing in
Prime Time: Immigration Myths and
Cable News," researchers
systematically debunked the major
anti-immigrant statements made by
Dobbs and others.
For
example, the report cited Census
data and university studies that
concluded recent immigrants are less
likely — not more — to be involved
in crimes than native-born citizens.
In fact, the report said,
neighborhoods with higher immigrant
populations had lower rates of
crime.
"When it comes to this issue, cable
news overflows not just with
vitriol, but also with a series of
myths that feed viewers' resentment
and fears, seemingly geared toward
creating anti-immigrant hysteria,"
the report said.
Programs like "Lou Dobbs Tonight"
are harmful and potentially
dangerous because they give license
to xenophobes and racists to spew
their hate on immigrants.
If
such people see men in suits on TV
railing against immigrants, it
emboldens them to also show hate for
someone who doesn't fit their ideal
of an "American." To make matters
worse, perpetrators of hate crimes
often can't tell if a Hispanic
person is an illegal immigrant, a
legal immigrant or a U.S. citizen.
The
FBI reported last year that of all
the hate crimes in 2006 motivated by
a bias against someone's ethnicity
or national origin, 62.8 percent of
victims were targeted because of an
anti-Hispanic bias. In three years,
the number of Hispanic victims of
hate crimes jumped 38 percent, from
595 victims in 2003 to 819 in 2006.
Not
all this violence can be attributed
to talk-show hosts like Dobbs, of
course. But such programs foment
anger and obviously don't promote
civil discourse on the problem of
illegal immigration.
What's surprising about the CNN
boycott is that it didn't occur
sooner.
"We're taking this step after years
of CNN management's failure to rein
in Mr. Dobbs' irresponsible
assertions about immigrants and
their impact on our country and its
institutions," Gus West, The
Hispanic Institute's board chairman,
said when the boycott was announced
Tuesday.
"The lack of any meaningful response
from CNN's management, or any
abatement of Mr. Dobbs' offensive
tirades, makes it clear to us that
the company supports his misleading
and often inaccurate positions."
According to the Nielsen Company,
which monitors television viewers,
there are 12.1 million Hispanic
television households in the United
States.
