Takes on media coverage of Arizona illegal immigrant law

[alp227]

"Phoenix Mayor Says Lack of Fairness Doctrine Led to AZ Immigration Law" by John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who opposes his state's controversial new immigration law, blames the Reagan-era FCC, at least in part, for the law's passage.

In a Center For American Progress forum on May 14, Gordon said the seeds of the law go back to 1987, when the FCC scrapped the fairness doctrine as unconstitutional.

"I think it goes back to the Reagan era when the fairness doctrine was dropped," he said, "and instead of requiring both sides of a debate to be aired, only one side was given the chance depending on who was providing that."

"Stop O'Reilly's Immigrant Crime Slurs", Action Alert by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Includes a petition you can sign to Fox News.

Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly has repeatedly singled out one reason to support Arizona's draconian new immigration law: the state's exploding crime rate. But there is no documented crime wave in Arizona, and O'Reilly's attempt to link immigrants to crime is equally unfounded.

O'Reilly's record of overheated rhetoric is clear:

—May 3:
"Arizona had to do something. In the capital city, Phoenix, crime's out of control. For example, last year, New York City, with six times as many residents as Phoenix, had just 16,000 more reported crimes."

—May 4:
"The Arizona authorities say we're desperate. We don't have the money. Our crime problem is through the roof. Phoenix one of the most dangerous cities in the country. We got to do something."

—May 6:
"So the state of Arizona faced with an overwhelming crime problem, social chaos and a bankrupt treasury had to do something."

However, in contrast to Gordon's view, the Media Research Center argues that the national media was biased against the bill, but that was only after the bill passed. I think that Gordon was only talking about the Arizona state area media during the lead-up to the governor signing it.

"Elitist Networks Pile On Against Arizona Immigration Law" by Tim Graham

When political scientists compare populism and elitism, they could certainly find a test case in the new Arizona law on immigration enforcement. While Rasmussen found 70 percent of Arizonans favored the crackdown on illegal aliens, and new national media polls found majority support as well, ABC, CBS, and NBC denounced the popular will as short-sighted and discriminatory.

From April 23 to May 3, the top three television networks offered viewers 50 stories and interview segments on their morning and evening news programs. The tone was strongly hostile to the law and promotional to the "growing storm" of left-wing protesters: 37 stories (or 74 percent) were negative, 10 were neutral, and only three were positive toward the Arizona law's passage -- 12 negative stories for every one that leaned positive. Stories were much kinder and sympathetic to illegal aliens than they were to police officers. Cops were potential abusers of power. Entering the country illegally was not an abuse of power. It was portrayed as an honorable step by the powerless.

As I pointed out earlier, opposition to SB1070 came even from police chiefs and even Karl Rove and other prominent Republicans, and just as many Americans are concerned that the Arizona law brings issues with racism as support it.

[underpants]

1. The other RW talking point is about a similar law that was passed in King William county VA

"violent crime has dropped 38% since the law passed" which sounds like "illegals" (who have a lower crime rate than almost any other group-for obvious reasons) were committing the crimes. In fact they were probably the target of most of the violent crime. The county supervisor who is a regular around here on radio conveniently doesn't have the before statistics ready at hand when he comes on the radio. He also never mentions that all the people who left his county caused the county spend $1,000,000 cutting grass at empty apartment buildings and houses....gee wonder who they hired to do that?