Lou Dobbs: Short on facts, long on opinions

It seems that Lou Dobbs, not satisfied with only one hour per day on CNN and a nationwide book tour, is planning several more hours per day on CBS-TV and a syndicated radio show. Dobbs already hosts a CNN "news" program devoted largely to his anti-immigrant propagandizing. His factual distortions have been critiqued by the New York Times (read here). Media Matters uncovered his attributed use of material authored by the hate group Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), formerly known as the White Citizens Council (read here) (learn about the CCC here and here). Dobbs, undeterred, now roams the land on a book tour falsely claiming that no major errors have been found in his reporting and that his views have no connection to bigotry. Interviewers almost exclusively lob him softballs, but every so often the unexpected happens, and his feet get held to the fire. READ THIS:

from Southern Poverty Law Center Hatewatch:
‘Democracy Now’ Takes On Lou Dobbs:

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of “Democracy Now,” a serious radio and television news and analysis program, conducted an hour-long interview with nativist CNN host Lou Dobbs yesterday, and it was a doozie. Dobbs was pounded with questions about the bogus “facts” that he regularly trots out to demonize undocumented immigrants, such as his claim that a “third of our prison population” are “illegal aliens.” (As “Democracy Now” pointed out, the Justice Department says about 6% of state and federal prison populations are non-citizens. The government does not know what percentage of those non-citizens are undocumented.)

Dobbs’ chief reaction was to attack the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), whose Intelligence Report has carried a series of reports on Dobbs inaccuracies (see here, here, here and here), his promotion of racist conspiracy theories (see here), and the appearance of hate group members and leaders on his program (see here). (“Democracy Now” relied heavily on that SPLC research to confront Dobbs, who was plugging a new book.) Bizarrely, Dobbs responded to mention of his use of a white supremacist group’s graphic by noting that he had sent producers and reporters to SPLC’s Alabama offices in late 2004 “to make certain this sort of thing doesn’t happen.” But minutes later, he described the very same SPLC as “indulging in pure BS” in order to raise money. On his own show, he has called the SPLC a “fascist” group after SPLC criticized him. The whole thing was reminiscent of the way Dobbs last spring defended his false claim of immigrant-borne leprosy in a on-air debate with SPLC officials (see here).

This morning, “Democracy Now” invited Mark Potok, editor of the Center’s Intelligence Report, to respond to Dobbs’ comments and to discuss the magazine’s new cover story, which details an apparent surge in violent, anti-Latino hate crime.

Also today, The New York Times reported that Dobbs was planning to add a three-hour daily radio program to his CNN show, “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” and his post as a commentator on CBS’ “The Early Show.” Dobbs characterized his radio show in this eyebrow-raising comment to the Times: “My interest is in bringing a voice of reason, rather than the partisan and ideological poles that define talk radio right now.”

Forward to Lou Dobbs: The real immigration health threat

Yeah...Lou Dobbs has been touting as real the non-existent threat of Mexican immigrants infecting U.S. citizens with leprosy. Turned out his statistical evidence was totally off the wall -- manufactured by some anti-immigrant crackpot. (READ ABOUT IT HERE.)

Contrary to the Dobbsian view of the world, here's the real threat, according to todays NY Times:

Mexican Migrants Carry H.I.V. Home - New York Times

I guess Dobbs will now call for those who've been in the U.S. to be banned from other countries.

Truth, Fiction and Lou Dobbs

This New York Times article, Truth, Fiction and Lou Dobbs, is a must read. Lou Dobbs has presented himself as the immigration oracle, disparaging anyone who disagrees with him as factually inaccurate. Now, when his facts are in error, he circles the wagons and refuses to take responsibility. This is the problem when a true believer presents himself as a journalist. Whatever happened to journalistic standards like accuracy and objectivity?

Excerpt:

The whole controversy involving Lou Dobbs and leprosy started with a “60 Minutes” segment a few weeks ago.

The segment was a profile of Mr. Dobbs, and while doing background research for it, a “60 Minutes” producer came across a 2005 news report from Mr. Dobbs’s CNN program on contagious diseases. In the report, one of Mr. Dobbs’s correspondents said there had been 7,000 cases of leprosy in this country over the previous three years, far more than in the past.

When Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” sat down to interview Mr. Dobbs on camera, she mentioned the report and told him that there didn’t seem to be much evidence for it.

“Well, I can tell you this,” he replied. “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”

With that Orwellian chestnut, Mr. Dobbs escalated the leprosy dispute into a full-scale media brouhaha. The next night, back on his own program, the same CNN correspondent who had done the earlier report, Christine Romans, repeated the 7,000 number, and Mr. Dobbs added that, if anything, it was probably an underestimate. A week later, the Southern Poverty Law Center — the civil rights group that has long been critical of Mr. Dobbs — took out advertisements in The New York Times and USA Today demanding that CNN run a correction.

Finally, Mr. Dobbs played host to two top officials from the law center on his program, “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” where he called their accusations outrageous and they called him wrong, unfair and “one of the most popular people on the white supremacist Web sites.”

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think Dobbs is evil incarnate, or that he's at the level of O'Reilly or Limbaugh. But, on the issue of immigration, he espouses view that harken back to know-nothing nativism. As a nation, we can't allow the important immigration debate to be framed by Dobbsian terms. What he just doesn't get, however, is that the immigration issue ain't about leprosy...

Here's more on the Dobbs School of Journalism: Dobbs responded to leprosy criticism by falsely suggesting he had admitted error