It’s May Day again, and I again am reminded of just how biased the is U.S. media is in its handling of the whole illegal immigration issue. A local Los Angeles newscast reported on today’s May Day rallies, playing shot after, long, lingering shot of several protesters carrying American flags while showing only extremely brief glimpses of the large numbers of people wielding Mexican flags. I know, nothing new there.

I remember 2 years ago when a much larger protest ended with a rally just blacks from my house. I checked out the scene and was a bit surprised to see an overwhelming percentage of Mexican flags in the crowd. However, news coverage of that same event was carefully edited to make it look as though American flags predominated.

Now I’m hardly the obsessive flag-waving type, yet I mention all this because such abject manipulation of press coverage is appalling. The job of reporters is to report, not to editorialize , sanitize, or vilify.

That same local L.A. newscast spent several minutes tonight emphasizing the “clear message” and “peaceful behavior” of the protesters (who were continually referred to simply as “immigrants”). Then the station ran a very brief interview of a man from a group called “Friends of the Border Patrol”, and this clip was framed by a title that read simply, “Anti-Immigrant”.

I find this type of manipulative and inaccurate labeling and editing to be particularly appalling, and it is evident in almost every newscast covering the immigration situation. Anyone speaking against illegal immigration is called “anti-immigrant”, despite any evidence at all that they are against legal immigration.  This phenomenon is, in fact, beyond mere misrepresentation.  It is lying.

I would venture to guess that the vast majority of Americans are strong supporters of legal immigration. In fact, the United States admits more immigrants legally every single year than the rest of the world combined. Yet anyone who stands up for the rule of law is labeled as a nativist or worse? This is sheer insanity.

I for one would LOVE to see levels of legal immigration increased, particularly for doctors and engineers, be they from Mexico, South Africa, or India. Yet levels for professional are strictly capped. Even those medical professionals who manage to get green cards are made to go through ridiculously complex re-training and to navigate serpentine bureaucracy, often for years, before they can hope to practice medicine.

True, the employers who hire illegal immigrants are the heart of the problem and must be punished. But the illegal immigrants themselves are breaking the law and causing untold damage to the workers they displace (and yes, they DO displace workers!) An actually unbiased media report would highlight not only the plight of the illegal immigrants but ALSO the plight of the very workers they displace, who have been slammed by both illegal immigration AND outsourcing do to the “free trade” policies of the past 10-15 years. Of course, this type of coverage is all but unheard of.

So why do new reports empathize only with law-breaking illegal immigrants while ignoring displaced native workers? If the recent coverage of the writers’ strike taught us anything, it’s that news coverage in this day and age of concentrated media ownership tends to reflect the agenda of the media corporations. Large corporations reap huge benefits from the suppression of wages that results from illegal immigration. They have come to depend on the constant infusion of cheap labor like a heroin addict depends on his next fix. Like an addict, they will lie, cheat, and steal in order to keep getting their next fix.

In all likelihood, reporters are not strong-armed by their corporate bosses into supporting one point of view or another. Instead, they have grown lazy, simply regurgitating press releases. They are, in essence, easily manipulated, and corporations are far better prepared to manipulate the press than are grassroots organizations.

So on this May Day I am left to reflect on the sad state of the press in America. Only with a truly free and unbiased press can a democracy thrive. Our best hope is that the proliferation and dissemination of diverse points of view through blogs and other online sources will continue to flourish. Long live bloggers!

Technorati Tags: illegal immigration, immigrants, media bias

As Economist Dean Baker has pointed out, the proposal being floated by Hillary and McCain to lower the gas tax over the coming summer would:

• Not lower prices at the pump one bit
• Just put more money into the pockets of the oil companies

How can this be? It’s simple supply and demand. With refineries claiming to be operating at full capacity, no more gas can be produced. Gas prices are determined by market forces - as long as there is continued demand and supply is maxxed out, prices will not decline.

So while there would be a momentary drop in pricing when taxes were suspended, the lower price would increase demand, thus leading to the price at the pump rising right back to where it was before the tax was suspended, if not higher.

Brilliant idea, huh?

Of course, an astute politician might take note that gas prices have risen due to skyrocketing oil prices and that oil prices have gone up due to:

• The dollar’s decline (which was in turn powered by the Fed’s lowering interest rates)
• Extreme speculation in the oil markets (brought to you by the very same hedge fund managers who brought you the real estate bubble)

So basically, the Fed has bailed out the irresponsible hedge fund managers and banks in part with lower interest rates. This in turn has led directly to the escalation in gas prices. As a result, politicians have proposed “helping the consumer” by putting billions right into the pockets of oil companies.

This is the government we get when we allow corporate and other special interests to drive policy, and, worse yet, to literally draft legislation.

Technorati Tags: gas tax, hillary, mccain

Partisanship is an indulgence we can no longer afford. Partisan mantras and emotional appeals have all but replaced pragmatism and reasoned argument in public discourse. With some notable exceptions, the media has been reduced to little more than a cheerleading corps, repeating the catch phrased and emotion-based arguments of interest groups and political operatives.

This blog is an attempt to interject a pragmatic counterpoint to the onslaught of emotion-based reporting in the media. Clearly I won’t get it all right, so correct me when I’m wrong. I’m always looking to learn new things and to expose myself to new points of view.

Technorati Tags: logic