Media Matters for America
July 16, 2010
by Jocelyn Fong
When a news outlet doesn't do their research, it's easy to get duped. And that's just what happened yesterday, when the Center for Immigration Studies got Fox News to repeatedly promote its "mini-documentary," "Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border 2: Drugs, Guns, and 850 Illegal Aliens."
The video features footage from hidden cameras placed in the Tucson sector of Arizona, along trails frequently used by people who entered the country illegally. According to the video, the cameras captured "about 850 illegal aliens" in "60 days between February and March 2010." CIS says of its production: "At minimum, the inescapable conclusion is that hidden cameras reveal a reality that illegal-alien activity is escalating."
Well if CIS says such a conclusion is, "at minimum," "inescapable," Fox News shouldn't waste their time verifying the claim, right? How I wish it weren't so.
Over the course of three of Fox News' "straight news" programs, the hosts and correspondents channeled CIS's claims, treating the 10-minute documentary as groundbreaking. Bill Hemmer described the video as "shocking," Megyn Kelly called it "stunning," correspondent Molly Hennenberg uncritically reported that CIS "says these videos show the escalating illegal alien activity," and Bret Baier said the film "shows the situation along the border getting worse." Trace Gallagher further suggested that the video is evidence that "the feds" are not protecting the lands that appear in the video.
While Fox made a lot of conclusions, they certainly didn't provide a lot of facts. To a real news organization, it might have been a red flag that part of the evidence CIS provides for the claim that "illegal-alien activity is escalating" is a Power Point presentation about environmental damage that is six years old.
More notably, Fox News didn't even try to provide context for the number of undocumented immigrants that appear in the video. "850 illegal aliens" over "60 days" sure sounds like a lot. But in the Tucson Sector, where the hidden cameras were placed, Border Patrol apprehended 449,654 illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2001, the year Bush took office [Associated Press 10/01/02]. That's 1,232 people every day. In 2006, there were 1,074 apprehensions per day in the Tucson sector.
By fiscal year 2009, the number of Tucson sector apprehensions was down to 241,600, or 662 per day, reflecting a drop in the number of illegal immigrants attempting to enter the United States, due to the recession and increased enforcement. (The Southwest border and the Tucson sector are now policed by more Border Patrol agents than ever before.)
The number of illegal immigrants apprehended in the Tucson sector in 2009 was a 10-year-low and still 47 times the number of people who appear in the CIS video.
In short, the "mini-documentary" tells us nothing.
And yet Fox News says we should be shocked. What's truly shocking is that Fox has no understanding of what's been happening along the Arizona border for the past decade. And that instead of tracking down the relevant information, the network instead reproduces the claims of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group with a clear agenda, without blinking an eye (or asking question).
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007160029
Showing posts with label FOX news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FOX news. Show all posts
Friday, July 16, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
A Reagan Legacy: Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants
National Public Radio - All Things Considered
July 4, 2010
As the nation's attention turns back to the fractured debate over immigration, it might be helpful to remember that in 1986, Ronald Reagan signed a sweeping immigration reform bill into law. It was sold as a crackdown: There would be tighter security at the Mexican border, and employers would face strict penalties for hiring undocumented workers.
But the bill also made any immigrant who'd entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty — a word not usually associated with the father of modern conservatism.
In his renewed push for an immigration overhaul this week, President Obama called for Republican support for a bill to address the growing population of illegal immigrants in the country. This time, however, Republicans know better than to tread near the politically toxic A-word.
Part of this aversion is due to what is widely seen as the failure of Reagan's 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. However, one of the lead authors of the bill says that unlike most immigration reform efforts of the past 20 years, amnesty wasn't the pitfall.
"We used the word 'legalization,' " former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson tells NPR's Guy Raz. "And everybody fell asleep lightly for a while, and we were able to do legalization."
The law granted amnesty to nearly 3 million illegal immigrants, yet was largely considered unsuccessful because the strict sanctions on employers were stripped out of the bill for passage.
Simpson says the amnesty provision actually saved the act from being a total loss. "It's not perfect, but 2.9 million people came forward. If you can bring one person out of an exploited relationship, that's good enough for me."
Reagan And Amnesty
Nowadays, conservative commentators like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh often invoke the former president as a champion of the conservative agenda. Sean Hannity of Fox News even has a regular segment called "What Would Reagan Do?"
Simpson, however, sees a different person in the president he called a "dear friend."
Reagan "knew that it was not right for people to be abused," Simpson says. "Anybody who's here illegally is going to be abused in some way, either financially [or] physically. They have no rights."
Peter Robinson, a former Reagan speechwriter, agrees. "It was in Ronald Reagan's bones — it was part of his understanding of America — that the country was fundamentally open to those who wanted to join us here."
Reagan said as much himself in a televised debate with Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in 1984.
"I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally," he said.
Now, Amnesty Is Out; Border Security Is In
More than 20 years later, the Republican Party has changed its tune. President Obama's call for bipartisanship on the immigration issue was answered by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. A bipartisan effort would be possible, he said, if Obama "would take amnesty off the table and make a real commitment to border and interior security."
But Simpson, a fellow Republican who served in the Senate with McConnell from 1986 to 1997, says calling for tighter borders is a tried-and-true tactic of politicians unwilling to confront the realities of a growing illegal population.
"That's always the palliative that makes people feel good," he says. "You just say, 'Well, we're still dinkin' around with immigration, so since we can't seem to get anything done and our constituents are raising hell — how do we get re-elected?' Well, you just put some more money into the border."
Robinson says Reagan's own diaries show the president found the idea of a militantly staffed border fence difficult to take. In a private meeting with then-President Jose Lopez Portillo of Mexico in 1979, Reagan wrote that he hoped to discuss how the United States and Mexico could make the border "something other than the location for a fence."
Fix It Before You Overhaul It
These days, Republicans are also calling for existing laws to be toughened up, which Reagan would have agreed with, Robinson says. In fact, Robinson says, he would have been so upset at the federal government's failure to make good on the 1986 reform that he would have demanded for that law to be fixed first before instituting a new overhaul.
"He, too, would have been right there in saying, 'Fix the borders first.' " Where he would have differed, Robinson says, is his welcoming attitude toward immigrants.
"He was a Californian," Robinson says. "You couldn't live in California ... without encountering over and over and over again good, hard-working, decent people — clearly recent arrivals from Mexico."
That the U.S. failed to regain control of the border — making the 1986 law's amnesty provision an incentive for others to come to America illegally — would have infuriated Reagan, Robinson says.
"But I think he would have felt taking those 3 million people and making them Americans was a success."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128303672
July 4, 2010
As the nation's attention turns back to the fractured debate over immigration, it might be helpful to remember that in 1986, Ronald Reagan signed a sweeping immigration reform bill into law. It was sold as a crackdown: There would be tighter security at the Mexican border, and employers would face strict penalties for hiring undocumented workers.
But the bill also made any immigrant who'd entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty — a word not usually associated with the father of modern conservatism.
In his renewed push for an immigration overhaul this week, President Obama called for Republican support for a bill to address the growing population of illegal immigrants in the country. This time, however, Republicans know better than to tread near the politically toxic A-word.
Part of this aversion is due to what is widely seen as the failure of Reagan's 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. However, one of the lead authors of the bill says that unlike most immigration reform efforts of the past 20 years, amnesty wasn't the pitfall.
"We used the word 'legalization,' " former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson tells NPR's Guy Raz. "And everybody fell asleep lightly for a while, and we were able to do legalization."
The law granted amnesty to nearly 3 million illegal immigrants, yet was largely considered unsuccessful because the strict sanctions on employers were stripped out of the bill for passage.
Simpson says the amnesty provision actually saved the act from being a total loss. "It's not perfect, but 2.9 million people came forward. If you can bring one person out of an exploited relationship, that's good enough for me."
Reagan And Amnesty
Nowadays, conservative commentators like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh often invoke the former president as a champion of the conservative agenda. Sean Hannity of Fox News even has a regular segment called "What Would Reagan Do?"
Simpson, however, sees a different person in the president he called a "dear friend."
Reagan "knew that it was not right for people to be abused," Simpson says. "Anybody who's here illegally is going to be abused in some way, either financially [or] physically. They have no rights."
Peter Robinson, a former Reagan speechwriter, agrees. "It was in Ronald Reagan's bones — it was part of his understanding of America — that the country was fundamentally open to those who wanted to join us here."
Reagan said as much himself in a televised debate with Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in 1984.
"I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally," he said.
Now, Amnesty Is Out; Border Security Is In
More than 20 years later, the Republican Party has changed its tune. President Obama's call for bipartisanship on the immigration issue was answered by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. A bipartisan effort would be possible, he said, if Obama "would take amnesty off the table and make a real commitment to border and interior security."
But Simpson, a fellow Republican who served in the Senate with McConnell from 1986 to 1997, says calling for tighter borders is a tried-and-true tactic of politicians unwilling to confront the realities of a growing illegal population.
"That's always the palliative that makes people feel good," he says. "You just say, 'Well, we're still dinkin' around with immigration, so since we can't seem to get anything done and our constituents are raising hell — how do we get re-elected?' Well, you just put some more money into the border."
Robinson says Reagan's own diaries show the president found the idea of a militantly staffed border fence difficult to take. In a private meeting with then-President Jose Lopez Portillo of Mexico in 1979, Reagan wrote that he hoped to discuss how the United States and Mexico could make the border "something other than the location for a fence."
Fix It Before You Overhaul It
These days, Republicans are also calling for existing laws to be toughened up, which Reagan would have agreed with, Robinson says. In fact, Robinson says, he would have been so upset at the federal government's failure to make good on the 1986 reform that he would have demanded for that law to be fixed first before instituting a new overhaul.
"He, too, would have been right there in saying, 'Fix the borders first.' " Where he would have differed, Robinson says, is his welcoming attitude toward immigrants.
"He was a Californian," Robinson says. "You couldn't live in California ... without encountering over and over and over again good, hard-working, decent people — clearly recent arrivals from Mexico."
That the U.S. failed to regain control of the border — making the 1986 law's amnesty provision an incentive for others to come to America illegally — would have infuriated Reagan, Robinson says.
"But I think he would have felt taking those 3 million people and making them Americans was a success."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128303672
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Fox's Most Blatant Falsehood Ever?
Media Matters for America
Press Release
June 17, 2010
Washington, DC - Today, after Fox News and the Fox Nation falsely suggested that President Obama was giving a "major strip" of land in Arizona "back to Mexico," Media Matters for America issued an open letter to Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente asking that, as promised in the "quality control" memo Fox News management issued to staff, "immediate disciplinary action" be taken.
"Michael Clemente cannot simply ignore this on-air error like he has so many others," said Ari Rabin-Havt, Vice President for Research and Communications at Media Matters. "This was one of the most deliberately misleading reports I've ever seen on Fox News."
Added Rabin-Havt: "This is not a quality control problem. This is a journalistic ethics problem. And if Fox News doesn't correct this, it will prove that it has none."
BACKGROUND
Rabin-Havt has sent five previous letters about such "mistakes" but has yet to receive a response. He sent today's letter after Bonnie Swarbrick, the public information officer for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, exclusively told Media Matters that Fox's claims were "totally false" and the notion that America had given the land back to Mexico is "ludicrous."
The letter reads:
Dear Mr. Clemente:
I am writing to you to demand that you correct a glaring error made both on Fox News and on Fox's website The Fox Nation.
The Fox Nation used the preposterous headline "Obama Gives Back Major Strip of AZ to Mexico" to trumpet a report about a closure of land in a national wildlife refuge in Arizona. During that America Live report, guest host Shannon Bream stated: "A massive stretch of Arizona now off limits to Americans. Critics say the administration is, in effect, giving a major strip of the Southwest back to Mexico."
But according to Bonnie Swarbrick, who is the public information officer for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, the "massive stretch" of land is about five miles square, it's been closed since 2006, and it obviously hasn't been given back to Mexico.
Swarbrick told Media Matters that the area in the refuge bordering Mexico was "closed in 2006 during the construction of a vehicle barrier." Work on the vehicle barrier progressed into the construction of a 12-foot fence along the part of the refuge that borders Mexico, which is about seven miles long. The area has been kept closed "to allow the Border Patrol to do their work," she said. Swarbrick added that the small strip of land that is closed makes up "less than 0.03 percent" of the refuge and said that the rest of the reserve is still open to the public.
However, the on-screen map that Fox News used during the report suggested a far different scenario:
The map suggests that the red outline indicates the closed area, but only the area of the refuge along the U.S.-Mexico border is actually closed
As for the Fox Nation headline, Swarbrick called it "totally false" and said the notion that America had given the land back to Mexico is "ludicrous."
I'll remind you once again of the quality control memo your network issued in November. The memo assured that "mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the 'mistake chain.' " I would assume that the memo would also apply to Fox Nation, a website that Fox News has promoted with advertisements telling viewers that "[i]t's time to say 'no' to biased media and 'yes' to fair play and free speech."
I have written you on five previous occasions about errors on your network, and I have yet to see any "immediate disciplinary action" take place. In this particular case, on-air and online corrections, at the very least, are necessary.
Sincerely,
Ari Rabin-Havt
Vice President for Communications and Research
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/press/releases/201006170032
Press Release
June 17, 2010
Washington, DC - Today, after Fox News and the Fox Nation falsely suggested that President Obama was giving a "major strip" of land in Arizona "back to Mexico," Media Matters for America issued an open letter to Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente asking that, as promised in the "quality control" memo Fox News management issued to staff, "immediate disciplinary action" be taken.
"Michael Clemente cannot simply ignore this on-air error like he has so many others," said Ari Rabin-Havt, Vice President for Research and Communications at Media Matters. "This was one of the most deliberately misleading reports I've ever seen on Fox News."
Added Rabin-Havt: "This is not a quality control problem. This is a journalistic ethics problem. And if Fox News doesn't correct this, it will prove that it has none."
BACKGROUND
Rabin-Havt has sent five previous letters about such "mistakes" but has yet to receive a response. He sent today's letter after Bonnie Swarbrick, the public information officer for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, exclusively told Media Matters that Fox's claims were "totally false" and the notion that America had given the land back to Mexico is "ludicrous."
The letter reads:
Dear Mr. Clemente:
I am writing to you to demand that you correct a glaring error made both on Fox News and on Fox's website The Fox Nation.
The Fox Nation used the preposterous headline "Obama Gives Back Major Strip of AZ to Mexico" to trumpet a report about a closure of land in a national wildlife refuge in Arizona. During that America Live report, guest host Shannon Bream stated: "A massive stretch of Arizona now off limits to Americans. Critics say the administration is, in effect, giving a major strip of the Southwest back to Mexico."
But according to Bonnie Swarbrick, who is the public information officer for the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, the "massive stretch" of land is about five miles square, it's been closed since 2006, and it obviously hasn't been given back to Mexico.
Swarbrick told Media Matters that the area in the refuge bordering Mexico was "closed in 2006 during the construction of a vehicle barrier." Work on the vehicle barrier progressed into the construction of a 12-foot fence along the part of the refuge that borders Mexico, which is about seven miles long. The area has been kept closed "to allow the Border Patrol to do their work," she said. Swarbrick added that the small strip of land that is closed makes up "less than 0.03 percent" of the refuge and said that the rest of the reserve is still open to the public.
However, the on-screen map that Fox News used during the report suggested a far different scenario:
The map suggests that the red outline indicates the closed area, but only the area of the refuge along the U.S.-Mexico border is actually closed
As for the Fox Nation headline, Swarbrick called it "totally false" and said the notion that America had given the land back to Mexico is "ludicrous."
I'll remind you once again of the quality control memo your network issued in November. The memo assured that "mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the 'mistake chain.' " I would assume that the memo would also apply to Fox Nation, a website that Fox News has promoted with advertisements telling viewers that "[i]t's time to say 'no' to biased media and 'yes' to fair play and free speech."
I have written you on five previous occasions about errors on your network, and I have yet to see any "immediate disciplinary action" take place. In this particular case, on-air and online corrections, at the very least, are necessary.
Sincerely,
Ari Rabin-Havt
Vice President for Communications and Research
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/press/releases/201006170032
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