May 06, 2007

Lesley Stahl/60 Minutes tries lame hit piece on Lou Dobbs

Tonight's 60 Minutes featured a profile of Lou Dobbs by Lesley Stahl entitled Lou Dobbs, "Advocacy" Journalist? In the World of CBS, biased reporters - such as the dozens exposed in the entries here as well as Stahl herself, Ed Bradley, and Steve Kroft - are real journalists, but only Dobbs blurs the lines. Apparently if you're biased in the right way, it's OK.

Dobbs is "less Walter Cronkite than Bill O'Reilly"; good ol' leftwing Uncle Walty is apparently a journalist, while Dobbs is more a BOR-style firethrower.

She spends most of her time unable to fathom why anyone would care about illegal immigration, sidewise implying that Dobbs is a racist for opposing illegal immigration, and also spending an inordinate amount of time on apparently the only gotcha moment they could find: that one of his correspondents told him that "there have been 7,000 cases of leprosy in the U.S. in the past three years". From this:

Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., told the Business Journal of Phoenix. "For example, in 40 years, only 900 persons were afflicted by leprosy in the U.S.; in the past three years, more than 7,000 cases have been presented."

That statement appears to have been obtained from the article "Illegal Aliens and American Medicine" which, according to this, says:

Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy.

Did Stahl see that report? Why didn't she - the good journalist - mention where the figure was from?

Then, it's over to Mark Potok, "who monitors hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center." In addition to that, the SPLC is indirectly linked to the Mexican government (a fact not disclosed by Journalist Stahl).

Potok charges that Dobbs is a fear monger. "The impression you get, pretty strongly I think, day after day, is that sort of all 11 million illegal aliens are bringing leprosy, they're bringing crime, they're bringing all these terrible things to the United States," he explains.

"If these people have come into this country illegally, what is so wrong with somebody taking it up as an advocate?" Stahl asks.

"But that does not sort of give one the go-ahead to say that, you know, 'These are a group of rapists and disease-carrying people who are coming to, you know, essentially destroy the culture of this country.' You know, I think that’s a long leap," Potok says.

Obviously, the one leaping is Potok.

Then, Stahl once again shows her ignorance by saying that he "seems to suggest that all illegals should be rounded up." He corrects her, saying that while he's never advocated that it would be possible if we wanted to. She persists, gamely pushing the Bush/Chertoff line:

"We can't even find them," Stahl points out. "How're you going to round them up? I'm serious. If you think it's possible. How's it possible?"

Then, Dobbs has kind words for migrant workers:

If that pat on the back is surprising, given the tone of his show, there's something even more surprising, something he never brings up: the fact that his wife Debi is Mexican-American.

In no way, shape or form is anything Lesley Stahl does journalism.

UPDATE: Our fair trade reporter, David Sirota, discusses the piece here. While he doesn't defend or oppose Dobbs' immigration stance, he does defend him because of his outsourcing stance. And, he points out even more Stahl biases.

UPDATE 2: Dobbs responds to the interview here, fingering Cosman for her report (linked above). And, regarding Potok's claims, he says:

...You just took a plunge from the facts.

First of all, I've never said anything remotely resembling what you suggested. And of the numbers of reports, the hundreds and hundreds of reports we've done on the issue of illegal immigration on this broadcast over the past four and a half years, well, I decided to find out, and I asked our staff to compute how many of them dealt with disease or other illnesses and illegal aliens.

By the way, the number, Mr. Potok, is three. That's three over a period of four and a half years. What happened to your "day in and day out"?

And by the way, Mr. Potok, three of our reports covered rape or sexual predators in the context of illegal immigration in this country...

UPDATE 3: From this:

In an email, a CNN spokeswoman attributed the claim to a 2005 article by medical historian and anti-illegal immigration activist Madeleine Cosman in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. That article stated, "Leprosy, Hansen's disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy." Ms. Cosman, who has since died, attributed those numbers to a 2003 report in the New York Times, but it appears she misrepresented the wording of that report. The Times article said, "While there were some 900 recorded cases in the United States 40 years ago, today more than 7,000 people have leprosy, or Hansen's disease, as it is now called." The Times wording suggests that the 7,000 figure represents total patients, not just new diagnoses — and doesn't support Ms. Romans's claim on the Dobbs show that "there were about 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years." ...The Times article didn't identify the source of the numbers. A spokesman for the paper said he would look into it but hasn't yet gotten back to me. If he does, I'll update this post... "Lou Dobbs Tonight" was certainly not the only media outlet to publicize the leprosy numbers as part of a broader argument that illegal immigration poses health risks. Since the Times article in 2003, the stats have appeared on Fox News and in newspapers' news pages, opinion columns and letters to the editor — often with similar confusion about the timeframe, to make the increase seem more marked.

Posted to Immigration2007a at May 6, 2007 07:41 PM