June 29, 2007

Tavis Smiley/PBS Democratic debate has no immigration questions at all

Yesterday, Tavis Smiley of PBS hosted the "The All-American Presidential Forums" featuring all the Democratic candidates:

Inspired by the book the Covenant with Black America, The All-American Presidential Forums on PBS marks the first time that a panel comprised of journalists of color was represented in primetime. Many of the questions that were asked of the candidates focus on key domestic priorities that were originally outlined in the book.

And, their front page [1] includes 10 main topics, one of them being immigration. On that page [2] they post an inflammatory and false comment from Maria Elena Salinas, Univision Anchor:

"There's so many cities out there where you have thousands of people that are immigrants that are saying, 'enough is enough. We are tired of this immigrant bashing and this dialogue that seems more like a monologue instead of a debate on immigration.'"

That's followed by a no doubt hand-picked set of six comments, all opposed to illegal immigration.

Despite that, there is not a single instance of "immig*" in the entire transcript (link). I guess some topics are more difficult than others.

[1] pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/special/forums
[2] pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/special/forums/issues/immigration.html

Posted to Immigration2007a at June 29, 2007 09:11 AM