There was a time not long ago when broadcast news was considered fair and impartial, when news anchors did not abuse their positions of trust to advance a personal or partisan agenda. No longer.
These days, news stories are no longer reported with objectivity but shrink-wrapped inside the bias of reporters and their corporate employers. News is editorialized, politicized, and hyped by talking heads eliciting the phony hysteria of a game show. The news, and our supposed responses to the news, are pre-packaged upon delivery as if citizens can no longer be trusted to make their own judgements.
In recent days, Lou Dobbs has joined the ranks of birth certificate conspiracy theorists, alleging that President Obama is not an American citizen and may even be undocumented. Of course, other CNN reporters have investigated these claims and found the infamous birth certificate exactly where it is supposed to be … on file in the State of Hawaii … along with birth announcements in the local press.
But these are not enough to dissuade die-hard conspiracy theorists, who will not be deprived of any opportunity to undermine Obama’s legitimate claim to the presidency. Like all conspiracy theorists and delusional nutcases hearing voices in their heads, Lou Dobbs dismisses the evidence (even the investigative reports of his own colleagues who have confirmed the existence of a valid birth certificate). Worst of all, Dobbs infers that Obama’s actions as president may be deemed illegal and therefore null and void.
Yesterday, Dobbs called his critics:
"limp-minded, lily-livered lefties"... who attacked him only because he "had the temerity to inquire as to where the birth certificate was and why the president of the United States would not turn over that birth certificate to the national media and end the noise."
Dobbs’ epithet is an insult to the 69,456,897 Americans, a 53% majority, who voted for the President. This goes beyond crazy. This is a prelude to inciting insurrection, not the province of ethical journalism. And that is why it is time for Lou Dobbs to go.
If you feel as I do, please take a moment to write a letter to CNN calling for Lou Dobbs’ dismissal, names and an address below:
Jon KleinPresidentRichard DavisExecutive Vice PresidentNews Standards and PracticesCNN Worldwide190 Marietta Street (1 CNN Center)Atlanta, GA 30303
I sent my letters via registered mail – return receipt requested.
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Update (4:00 PM): The Southern Poverty Law Center has written to Jon Klein, President of CNN, demanding that Lou Dobbs be removed from the air. Here is the published letter reproduced in full:
Dear Mr. Klein,
As an important and respected news organization, CNN has a special responsibility to ensure the accuracy of its reporting. We have written to you before about our concern that Lou Dobbs repeatedly fails to live up to this standard in his reporting on immigration. Now, Mr. Dobbs is again trading in falsehoods and racist conspiracy theories, questioning President Obama's American citizenship.
On the July 15 edition of "Lou Dobbs Tonight," Mr. Dobbs questioned the official certificate provided by the president and the State of Hawaii and complained that President Obama has not made public the "original document." On his radio program, Mr. Dobbs has repeatedly questioned the president's fitness for office, demanding he "show the documents" and, at one point, jokingly suggesting President Obama may be "undocumented."
The truth about the president's birth is not in dispute. It has been verified by Factcheck.org, among many other serious news organizations, and his official birth documents have been made public. CNN itself has repeatedly reported on the falsity of the claims of the "birthers," and the network's esteemed legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, recently called those claims "a joke." As you know, even Mr. Dobbs' frequent fill-in anchor, Kitty Pilgrim, debunked the birthers on the July 17 edition of Mr. Dobbs' own CNN show. The fact that Mr. Dobbs suggests otherwise on CNN -- while real CNN reporters tell the truth -- is both deplorable and an embarrassment to all serious journalists.
As he has in several other instances, Mr. Dobbs, in taking up the birthers' claims, is adopting an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that originated on the radical racist right. As Gawker.com has reported, this particular conspiracy theory was first developed by an open anti-Semite and circulated by right-wing extremists who cannot accept the fact that a black man has been elected president of the United States. Among its adherents was neo-Nazi James von Brunn, the alleged murderer of a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., this June. Von Brunn had helped spread the birthers' claims on the Internet and attacked the "dishonest & conspiratorial Media" for not taking them up.
This is not the first time Mr. Dobbs has pushed racist conspiracy theories or defamatory falsehoods about immigrants. We wrote you in 2007 to bring to your attention his utterly false claim that 7,000 new cases of leprosy had appeared in the United States in a recent three-year period, due at least in part to immigrants. (The real number, according to official statistics, was about 400. Mr. Dobbs took his spurious information from the late right-wing extremist, Madeleine Cosman.) In addition, Mr. Dobbs has reported as fact the so-called Aztlan conspiracy, which claims that undocumented Mexican immigrants are part of a plot to "reconquer" the American Southwest. He has suggested there is something to a related conspiracy theory that claims the governments of Mexico, the United States and Canada are secretly planning to merge into the "North American Union." He has falsely claimed that "illegal aliens" fill one third of American prison and jail cells. And Mr. Dobbs has routinely disparaged, on CNN's air, those who have had the integrity to point out the falsity of these and similar claims.
Respectable news organizations should not employ reporters willing to peddle racist conspiracy theories and false propaganda. It's time for CNN to remove Mr. Dobbs from the airwaves.
Sincerely,
J. Richard Cohen
President
The overwhelmingly evidence of documentation and verification from people like the Gov. of Hawaii, this kind of charge is based in irrational, obsessive, race hate, not some political vendetta.
ReplyDeleteThey will use any kind of ammunition, no matter how false, to remove a black man from the office of the President of the United States.
It's interesting to watch such people talking back and forth about he reasons Obama is such a terrible danger to the world. They know they're lying, they know that we know they're lying but they can't stop because they hate him so much but they don't want to admit it's because he's black.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the way it was.
Agreed, Time and Capt. Fogg -- that's about all there must be to it for such people: Obama is evidently guilty of being "president while black." PWB! It's rather sad to see public discourse sink so low -- not that it was in the stratosphere before, but really!
ReplyDelete"Birthers"? Why is America even giving these clowns such a semi-legitimizing name?
Bloggingdino: "Why is America even giving these clowns such a semi-legitimizing name?"
ReplyDeleteFor me, the term conjures up Invasion of the Body Snatchers and a mortal fear of falling asleep next to little green pods.
LOU Dobbs is not just another R. Limbaugh & we cast him as such at our peril.
ReplyDeleteFor a number of years now Lou Dobbs has positioned himself as the champion of the middle class and as an "Independent." In fact CNN promos for him have referred to him as "Mr. Independent." Unfortunately, he has used this title, this description, to portray himself and his followers as outsiders - yes - as poor forgotten outsiders who are now besieged my illegal immigrants in their midst. Illegal immigrants for whom Washington has sympathy while Washington ignores the middle class.
Fascinatingly - Dobbs was extremely critical of George and Dick. So unlike Rush L., Dobbs has not played the right versus the left political game. Instead he has made up a game of his own - the martyring of the poor forgotten middle class - forgotten by BOTH parties. This is the essence of LouDobbsinism. And as such, I think his rise to influence, his rise to CNN stardom has been due to his seemingly open-minded approach that seems to take BOTH parties to task.
I am no fan of the man. But I do think that he is insidiously different than the Colter's or Limbaugh's of our world. And in order to bring him down - it is his self-fashioned "otherness" that needs to be openly debunked and exposed for what it truly is - an otherness that is playing host idiocy & racism.
For what it's worth, the president of Southern Poverty Law Center has written a letter to CNN calling for his removal and citing, among other things the false story that 7000 cases of leprosy had been brought to the US by illegal aliens -- from the late right-wing extremist, a story he took without checking it from right wing extremist,Madeleine Cosman. He sites the claims that Mexico and our government are planning a North American Union and that 1/3 of all US jail inmates are illegal aliens.
ReplyDeleteIt's bad and dishonest journalism and it's his stock in trade.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is an unethical, leftist organization with a strong political agenda. They regularly smear conservatives as racists or extremists, and have no credibility with anyone in the know, including many liberals.
ReplyDeleteI have never listened to Lou Dobbs, but thanks to your recommendations I will make a point of doing so, and writing a letter encouraging CNN to keep him on.
Living, as we do, in a country where a good 90% of the population has an IQ 70 points lower than ours, we are neither pleased nor surprised to have you remind us of it.
ReplyDeletePlease, in future, confine your remarks to the low places where they might be appreciated by the lower orders.
-the Staff-