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New York Times: Truth, Fiction and Lou Dobbs (5/30/07) by David Leonhardt
A Times business writer concludes that CNN star Lou "Dobbs was flat-out wrong" when backing his show's claim of 7,000 new U.S. leprosy cases in three years—blamed by Dobbs on immigrants. When pressed to admit the error, Dobbs insisted he had made a correction, but "of course, he has never acknowledged on the air that his program presented false information twice. Instead, he lambasted [critics] for saying he had." Being "somewhat taken aback" by the "shameless" Dobbs "trying to have it both ways" by continuing to "emphasiz[e] that there really were 7,000 cases in the leprosy registry, the government's 30-year database," Leonhardt researched old Lou Dobbs Tonight shows. His disturbing findings include a correspondent's reference "to a Utah visit by... Mexico's president as a 'Mexican military incursion,'" and generally "a somewhat flexible relationship with reality."He has said, for example, that one-third of the inmates in the federal prison system are illegal
immigrants. That's wrong, too. According to the Justice Department, 6 percent of prisoners in this country are noncitizens (compared with 7 percent of the population). For a variety of reasons, the crime rate is actually lower among immigrants than natives....
The most common complaint about him, at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths.
The most common complaint about him, at least from other journalists, is that his program combines factual reporting with editorializing. But I think this misses the point. Americans, as a rule, are smart enough to handle a program that mixes opinion and facts. The problem with Mr. Dobbs is that he mixes opinion and untruths.
See also LouDobbs.com: An Answer for My Critics (5/30/07) by Lou Dobbs. Treating the New York Times article pointing out his inaccuracy as a vindication, Dobbs proclaims that as long as such attacks continue, "you and I can rest assured that we're doing more right than wrong on this broadcast." Dobbs apparently can't bring himself to believe that people might criticize him because he's easy to criticize. Take this passage from his rebuttal:
Exactly where those links are is not readily obvious; if anyone can find them on Dobbs' site, please point them out to us. But the New York Times does link to a Justice Department document that gives a figure for non-citizen "prisoners in this country," i.e., in state and federal prisons--which is 6 percent, just as the Times said. From the same document, you can also calculate the number of non-citizen prisoners in the federal system alone--which is 24 percent, not 29.3 percent, and certainly not "one-third," as Dobbs originally reported. (Not to be too easy on Leonhardt--he could have been clearer that he was switching from federal to federal and state inmates, as he was in the earlier column that he links to.)
Some parts of Dobbs' response just leave one scratching one's head:
So the bill would not be "the first step to a North American union," but would merely "endorse and legitimize...the foundation of this administration's efforts to create a North American union." We'll look for a link on Dobbs' website that clarifies that crucial distinction.
FAIR does not endorse every opinion expressed or vouch for facts presented here, except by ourselves. Send link suggestions to jnaureckas@fair.org.
