Would CNN allow Dobbs to attack Blacks?
by Jordan Berg Powers, Free Press
Imagine if a CNN anchor were allowed to talk for 60 minutes every night about how black people are spreading “tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria” in America.
Imagine if a CNN anchor were permitted to spout for 60 minutes every night that blacks are criminals and that blacks are on welfare and rotting in jails, costing Americans billions of dollars while contributing nothing to society.
Imagine if a CNN anchor used talking points from a group whose founders believe “some races of people are genetically and intellectually superior to other races.” Imagine that this same anchor warned of a secret plot by blacks to take over the country.
You’ll have to use your imagination because no one would be given a platform on CNN to spew such obscene racist remarks about black people.
And yet, because these “news segments” are about undocumented workers in the United States, CNN permits this hate speech almost every night on anchor Lou Dobbs’ show. Why? Is it less racist because it’s about Latinos?
No matter your views on immigration policy, surely hate speech is not acceptable on “America’s most-trusted news source.”
Dobbs is so extreme that CNN had to scrub a transcript when he made racially charged comments about former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The network should exercise the same vigilance when Dobbs makes similarly racist comments nightly about Latinos.
Immigrant and Latino rights groups are no longer just changing the channel; they’re protesting Dobbs’ program and urging CNN to enforce journalistic standards.
Last month, CNN presented “Latino in America,” a documentary series about the fastest growing demographic of Americans. The series is a good effort to accurately reflect the complexity of the Latino community and fairly covers the important debate on immigration that our country faces.
But the irony of a network that produces such a documentary while simultaneously permitting hate speech was not lost on Latino groups across the country, who have launched campaigns, including BastaDobbs.com and DropDobbs.org, to oust Dobbs.
Even the Latinos featured in “Latino in America” have come out to oppose Dobbs.
As the New York Times explained:
Isabel Garcia, a civil rights lawyer who was featured in the documentary and attended an protest against Mr. Dobbs in Tucson on Wednesday, said that she felt censored by CNN after the channel edited her comments about the anchor out of an interview.
She said she called Mr. Arpaio [Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona] and Mr. Dobbs ‘the two most dangerous men to our communities,’ and added that ‘because of them, our communities are being terrorized in a real way.’ She also asserted that CNN was ‘promoting lies and hate about our community’ by broadcasting Mr. Dobbs’s program. The comments were not included when the interview was broadcast.
CNN should be accountable to its viewers, who are demanding unbiased quality journalism. Judging from CNN’s declining viewership (Dobbs can count me as a former viewer) and the growing grassroots campaigns against Dobbs, the message is clear: Racist reporting won’t be tolerated, whether it’s about blacks or Latinos.
