CBS Paints Illegals as Victims by Showing Kids Split from Parents --5/2/2007
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2. CNN Illegal Alien Rally Coverage Includes (Unlabeled) Leninist
3. CNN's Lou Dobbs Takes on Media Coverage of Illegal Immigration
4. GMA on 'Mission Accomplished' Then: 'A++'; Now: 'Bushian Bravado'
5. O'Donnell Smears Soldiers, We've Killed More than Have Terrorists
6. Letterman's 'Top Ten Signs Fidel Castro Is Fully Recovered'
Citing how "it's estimated there are as many as 12 million in this country illegally," Couric framed CBS's coverage around their agenda: "What are they and their supporters demanding?" Bill Whitaker highlighted the protests and the views of their advocates before acknowledging "the chance for real immigration reform seems slim again this year, so these marchers plan to keep up the pressure to change the laws and stop the deportations, which they say are breaking up families." The next report picked up the theme: "I'm Sandra Hughes in San Diego, where nine-year-old Adeline Munoz packs for her weekly trip to Tijuana, Mexico. It's the only place she can see her parents. In February, Abel Munoz and Zulma Miranda were deported by immigration officials." After obligatory heart-rendering soundbites from the kids, Hughes featured the mom: "The deportation was inhumane. Our kids will never forget it. The little one always tells will me, every time I hear a knock on the door, I think it's Immigration." Not until the very end of her piece, about six minutes into the newscast, did viewers hear from someone not so enamored with the cause of the illegals. Hughes set up a clip: "Critics of illegal immigration concede it's a tough situation, but one the parents themselves created." [This item was posted Tuesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]
A year ago, as recounted in a CyberAlert item, "all three broadcast network evening newscasts led with multiple favorable stories about the day of protests to promote the cause of illegal aliens." And a look back shows that Katie Couric was just following the path set by her more-watched predecessor, Bob Schieffer, who opened the May 1, 2006 CBS Evening News by trumpeting: This year, ABC and NBC controlled their enthusiasm. But a year ago: "ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas touted how 'altogether, close to a million people took to the streets in more than 30 cities. And that number could still rise. It was the newest wave of protests against legislation that would increase the penalties for being in the U.S. illegally. Tonight, we have reports from around the country,' including a piece on a 'man in San Antonio, Texas, who broke decades of tradition' -- for 29 years never missing a day of work -- 'to make his own statement.' Over on the NBC Nightly News, which put six reporters on the story, Brian Williams heralded how 'we've been covering a major story unfolding all day,' showcasing video of 'solid people for blocks.' Williams concluded that 'the protests worked in many cases. Stores closed as workers headed out the door, and live television covered it all, all day long. We have comprehensive coverage tonight from coast to coast...'" For the May 2, 2006 CyberAlert: www.mrc.org The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide a transcript of the May 1 CBS Evening News stories championing the cause of illegal immigrants:
Couric opened her newscast: "Hello, everyone. It is May Day, the workers' holiday, and for the second straight year, there were rallies all over America on behalf of millions of people who work in this country illegally -- illegal immigrants. It's estimated there are as many as 12 million in this country illegally. Nearly four million households are headed by an undocumented immigrant. And what are they and their supporters demanding? We have two reports tonight, beginning with Bill Whitaker."
Bill Whitaker, over video of protesters: "Ten thousand in Los Angeles. In Chicago, 150,000. In Orlando, Denver, Houston, dozens of cities across the country, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets, calling, like last year, for reform of U.S. immigration laws."
On CNN, anchor Jim Clancy asked: "Soledad, what are they really expecting to see there today?" O'Brien noted from Chicago's Union Park "There are organizers here who've told us that they expect to see twice the numbers of marchers that they saw last year. Now on the other side of the spectrum, we've also heard people say you could just see under 10,000....What's interesting to me is to see how quickly it has really filled up in the last hour or so." Then she turned to the protesters and touted their usual palette of diversity:
O'Brien: "Now, because it's a grass roots organization, lots of people with lots of different agendas taking part in the march, also, lots of different groups. We've seen Muslims and Puerto Ricans, we've seen Filipinos, we've seen Koreans, you know, you name it, we've seen it here. In addition, of course, a large Mexican [presence], illegal and legal, by the way, turning out. When you ask people why they march, there are a couple of things in which they all see eye to eye. Here's Shaun Harkin. He is one of the organizers with the March 10th Movement." It's odd that the March 10th Movement would complain on its Web site ( movimiento10demarzo.org ) that "The undocumented worker is situated on a most flexible and precarious edge, giving rise to extreme forms of labor exploitation." It would have been interesting for O'Brien to ask Harkin if the "undocumented worker" is so extremely exploited, why are they streaming in to capitalist America illegally? Clancy also raised the prospect of the march being ruined by conservatives (although he granted them some momentum), and O'Brien agreed and then did another publicity turn for the protesters, noticing the relative absence of foreign flags:
Dobbs's interview was part of American Morning's coverage of pro-illegal immigration rallies on May Day, the traditional socialist workers' holiday. When asked if any progress had been made in the past year concerning illegal immigration, Dobbs said that "we're making, at the margin, progress, but it's at the margin," and that there was some better enforcement at the border. He then criticized one of the congressional immigration reform proposals, the Flake-Gutierrez immigration bill, calling it "an absurdity." Dobbs also answered a couple of questions that were sent in by viewers. Dobbs continued his criticism of the mainstream media in his answer to the first question, which dealt with illegal immigrants' impact on the economy. "Has anybody on this broadcast, any news organization in the country, said, wait a minute, why in the world are we worrying about illegal immigration into this country and their -- and their situation, before we're worrying about how long it takes to become a lawful immigrant in to this country and what we're doing with people who are playing by the rules? This is upside down. It's wrongheaded. And it is simply, to me, a travesty that mainstream media journalists are not focusing on the facts." Co-anchor Kiran Chetry also interviewed Eddie Sotelo, a talk show host on a Spanish-language radio station in Los Angeles, on the subject of illegal immigration. Sotelo helped promote last year's May Day rallies for illegal immigration. This item, by Matthew Balan, was posted Tuesday, with video, on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org. The audio/video will be added to the posted version of this CyberAlert, but to watch it in the meantime, go to: newsbusters.org ] Key excerpts from Lou Dobbs's May 1 interview:
Chetry: "What progress have we made, if any, from last year?"
On the fourth anniversary of the event, anchor Diane Sawyer introduced a segment that looked back on the "confident architects" of the Iraq war. Reporter Shipman then used the "Mission Accomplished" speech as a segue to attack familiar media targets: Shipman concluded her brief report, which aired at 7:09am on May 1, by reminding viewers that Donald Rumsfeld has resigned, that former CIA Director George Tenet has split with the President and of the troubles that Paul Wolfowitz finds himself in. As for Vice President Cheney, the ABC correspondent claimed that the conviction of his former top aide Scooter Libby "was read by many as a warning of his unchecked power."
However, as noted in the CyberAlert on May 2, 2003, George Stephanopoulos, appearing on Good Morning America to comment about the aircraft landing, seemed impressed: Finally, media reports often leave out relevant parts of the May '03 speech Bush gave on the deck of the USS Lincoln: "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We're helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools....The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq." Now, quoting this section of the speech may not be as simple and easy as repeatedly showing a banner, but it does provides some context.
O'Donnell asked: "Wait, can I just say something? Why do people enlist in the Army?" No, it's not. According to a recent study by the Heritage Foundation, military enlistees are "better educated, wealthier, and more rural on average than their civilian peers." Additionally, "recruits have a higher percentage of high school graduates" and "the distribution of household income of recruits is noticeably higher than the entire youth population." See: www.heritage.org [This item is adapted from a posting, by Justin McCarthy, on the MRC's NewsBusters.org blog: newsbusters.org ] Of course, facts don't matter to Rosie O'Donnell. After all, fire can't melt steel. For her 9/11 World Trade Center conspiracy, and much more, check the MRC's "Profile in Bias" on her, "The Full Rosie: Daytime Host's Long Record of Mean-Spirited Left-Wing Ravings," online at: www.mrc.org Token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck responded harshly and Rosie continued to smear volunteer soldiers before she claimed that she does support the troops.
The fact-free analysis continued as Rosie made this observation: "Well, listen, Elisabeth, we shouldn't be fighting this war, because we were not attacked by either of the nations we invaded. 19 Saudis were on those planes and we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq." Perhaps she's forgetting that Afghanistan's then ruling Taliban knowingly harbored Al Qaeda training camps. O'Donnell then continued to downplay the terrorist threat.
Hasselbeck: "Do you believe Al Qaeda, do you believe Al Qaeda is alive and working and planning in Iraq?"
From the May 1 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Signs Fidel Castro Is Fully Recovered." Late Show home page: www.cbs.com 10. Every morning, 45 minutes of torture followed by 45 minutes of cardio. 9. His coat is shiny and his nose is wet. 8. Organized six guerillas to rob Mick Jagger's apartment. 7. His 1959 Chrysler Imperial was spotted at IHOP. 6. In NFL draft, was picked before Brady Quinn. 5. Recently pimped out his MySpace. 4. Returned to favorite hobbies of his youth, like tennis and kidnapping. 3. Tried to get on "Late Show Impressionist Week 2" doing Pacino in Scarface. 2. He's put on 30 pounds, he's wearing fatigues, he's spewing propaganda -- no, that's Rosie O'Donnell. 1. Hasn't had a "Cuban Missile Crisis" in some time, if you know what I mean. -- Brent Baker
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While the ABC and NBC evening newscasts led Tuesday night with President George W. Bush's veto of the Iraq funding bill with pull-out deadlines, CBS began with back-to-back stories trumpeting the cause of illegal immigrants and portraying them as the victims. "Tonight," Katie Couric teased the CBS Evening News, "tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets of America to rally in support of illegal immigrants" and then, over video of a teen girl and her little sister, Couric fretted, "she was born here, but her parents were deported and there are many more like her." Of course, it was the choice of the parents to not take the kids with them back to Mexico. 
Katie Couric's tease: "Tonight, tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets of America to rally in support of illegal immigrants. She was born here, but her parents were deported-" 
Sandra Hughes: "I'm Sandra Hughes in San Diego, where nine-year-old Adeline Munoz packs for her weekly trip to Tijuana, Mexico. It's the only place she can see her parents. In February, Abel Munoz and Zulma Miranda were deported by immigration officials. They had been living in the United States for 18 years on expired visas." 
Hughes: "All three Munoz children were born in the U.S., so they are legal citizens, but they weren't celebrating, even on Adeline's birthday last week." 
Hughes, on a beach by the border fence: "It's unclear how many children have been left behind in the U.S. to fend for themselves since the government launched Operation 'Return to Sender.' Almost 24,000 people have been arrested for visa violations, sparking protests across the country. For those deported back to Mexico, this is what divides families -- the U.S.-Mexico border. Children on one side, the parents on the other, both facing an uncertain future. The Munoz family border reunions are bittersweet. The parents say they just couldn't bring the children to the slums of Tijuana with no jobs and sharing only a room at Zulma's parents." 
Surely, CNN doesn't stand for Communist News Network. But CNN's Soledad O'Brien went looking for the "grass roots" of the pro-illegal immigration movement in Chicago during Tuesday's Your World Today at mid-day. She interviewed a man she described as "Shaun Harkin of the March 10th Movement." She did not describe him with ideological precision: he's a fervent Leninist. An instant Googling of "Shaun Harkin" quickly brought up an article from Socialist Worker Online, where "SHAUN HARKIN explains why the Russian revolutionary Lenin and the theory that Lenin developed about the rise of imperialism remains so relevant today." Harkin concluded: "The dynamics of imperialism that Lenin analyzed are still present. His approach continues to offer the best framework to understand imperialism -- and is an essential tool for revolutionaries today." See: 
Clancy: "Soledad, what could really rain on these people's parades is very strong, very vocal opposition to any kind of amnesty, opposition that seems to be growing in a lot of quarters. This is really quite a debate in the U.S., isn't it?" 
On Tuesday's Good Morning America, the ABC program used the fourth anniversary of President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech to slam the "Bushian bravado" of an event that "this administration will never live down." Correspondent Claire Shipman marveled at "how naive that banner looks four years later." The day after the President landed on the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier, however, GMA wasn't so prescient. Back then, ABC's George Stephanopoulos labeled the speech an "A++," "well done" and seemed impressed with the "small poster that said 'Mission Accomplished.'" 
Tuesday's The View marked the fourth anniversary of President Bush's famous "mission accomplished" announcement with Rosie O'Donnell's predictable rants against the war and the administration. "How many more years and how many more dead kids?" she asked about President Bush's insistence on continuing to fight in Iraq," charging: "It's just, you know, it's way over the amount of people killed on September 11th. We've killed more Americans than any terrorist ever did in this war." And, with the aid of guest co-host Ricki Lake, O'Donnell followed themes expounded by Charles Rangel and Andy Rooney to assert that U.S. soldiers are not patriots, but losers who join out of desperation. 
Hasselbeck: "First of all, in the past year, the testing scores of our armed services have been higher than ever, so the education level-" 
