Campaign to Ax Lou Dobbs
Campaign to Ax Lou Dobbs
Date: Monday, April 17, 2006 6:12 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
April 17, 2006 No. 1461
Today's Lou Dobbs show opened with this announcement:
And we'll have a special report on the amnesty movements,
efforts to have me fired. They say that I'm against illegal
-- immigration, and I'm for border security. It turns out
they are right on both counts.
Lou Dobbs is under attack, this time by an Latino activist from Arizona
that goes by the name Jon Garrido. He goes by the name Jon Garrido Gonzales
when he is in Mexico running his Maquiladora. In case you don't know what a
Maquiladora is - it's a sweatshop that is located just over the border with
Mexico. They are factories that have been moved from the U.S. to Mexico in
order to exploit cheap Mexican labor. .
I'm not sure why Jon has duel identities. Perhaps he also has duel
citizenship and uses different aliases for each. Very odd to say the least!
Suppsedly he is running for the State Senate but his website doesn't work.
http://www.jongarridosenate.org/
He has a website that offers Spanish website design. Perhaps his Senate one
doesn't work because he can't do English.
http://clickspanish.us/
This is an excerpt from Garrido/Gonzalez's online resume:
http://jongarrido.com/jon_garrido_resume.htm
Jon Garrido also prepared the application and obtained approval
from the United States Department of Commerce for the El Paso
Foreign Trade Zone. Two years later, Jon Garrido moved to Mexico
and become Jon Garrido Gonzales in Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua,
Mexico where he established, owned and operated a Maquiladora
with 80 Mexican and 20 American employees producing automotive
parts for import into the USA.
Garrido, like many open-border radicals wants to get Lou Dobbs off the air
because he feels the American public is getting too much of the truth. His
campaign to ax Lou Dobbs centers on convincing Hispanics to cancel their
AOL accounts as a means of protesting.
Garrido must not know much about AOL, because if he did he would know that
once you are on AOL it's darn near impossible to cancel out (LOL!). AOL
will even charge you on your phone bill if necessary to collect their
money. Even if he figures out how to cancel AOL accounts, how many illegal
aliens use AOL?
I have been urging people to cancel their AOL accounts for a long time
because they censor newsletters like this one. Perhaps all of you with AOL
accounts could protest his protest by also canceling your account - you
kill two birds with one stone.
If Garrido was smart he would leave AOL alone. That's because if AOL gets
away with their spam block tax the people that get this newsletter will be
permanently blocked. Read the last article if you doubt what I say.
ZaZona.com is not a non-profit, so AOL may soon block this newsletter if I
don't pay their extortion - and I won't!
"The fact of the matter is that AOL's system is far from
perfect, and they do block information," said Timothy Karr,
campaign director for Free Press
Garrido's AOL boycott isn't very credible but it has to be noted that he is
tied in with many of the radical Hispanic groups who organized the large
protests throughout the country. Garrido has attempted some other boycotts
that have failed, so it's difficult to take him seriously. He called for a
boycott of Rusty Childress's car dealearship because Rusty was one of the
champions of Proposition 200.It's been over a year and the Childress
business is still going strong. If Garrido can't take down a local car
dealer in Phoenix he sure isn't going to take down Dobbs. Read the
AzCentral article for a few more chuckles about his boycotts.
This attack against Lou Dobbs is another expression of the arrogance these
people have and it demonstrates their attitude of entitlement. Dobbs tone
in the show was quite jovial - this boycott amuses him. Boycotts almost
never work so there is no reason Dobbs should worry.
Garrido talks a big game, but when it comes down to confronting Dobbs face
to face, he chickened out. Read this poor excuse for cowardice:
This morning (April 17) I received a request to appear today on
the Lou Dobbs show. What follows is the request and my response.
I then emailed our entire email list to state an acceptance by
any Hispanic to appear on Lou Dobbs helps promotes his show and
our goal is not to promote but to remove Lou Dobbs off CNN.
Therefore, all Hispanics are asked to stop all appearances on
the Lou Dobbs show. It is a theatrical show, not true unbiased
journalistic reporting.
The writers in the articles below used the controversy to throw a few jabs
at Lou Dobbs. Kinsley hypocritically complains about biased reporting on
Lou Dobbs while making this comment:
Michael Kinsley
CNN's Lou Dobbs, formerly a mild-mannered news anchor noted for
his palsy-walsy interviews with corporate CEOs, has turned
into a raving populist xenophobe. Ratings are up. It's like
watching one of those "makeover" shows that turn nerds into
fops or bathrooms into ballrooms.
Tim Rutten
"Fair and balanced" already is taken, so one supposes that
Dobbs' slogan will have to be "bully and bluster."
Material Used for this Newsletter
http://hispanic.cc/ax_aol.htm
NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO TAKE LOU DOBBS OFF THE AIR BEGINS
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49769
INVASION USA
Illegal-alien activists target Lou Dobbs
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/3872
Lou Dobbs: Bile Across The Border
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0608boycott.html
Latino activist calls for boycott of auto dealer over Prop. 200
A Mesa activist on Tuesday called for a boycott of a business owned by one
of Proposition 200's key champions. LULAC member Jon Garrido's appeal to
withhold patronage of Rusty Childress' auto dealership is the latest in a
series of protests, boycotts and marches in response to the Nov. 2 passage
of the immigration law, also supported by many Latinos.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/guests/s_441340.html
'Objectivity' no be-all and end-all
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/17/ldt.01.html
LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
Aired April 17, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-aol14apr14,1,1839518.story?coll=la-mininav-technology
AOL Blocks Critics' E-Mails
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://hispanic.cc/ax_aol.htm
NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO TAKE LOU DOBBS OFF THE AIR BEGINS
Lou Dobbs: Self Interested Demagoguery: One who makes use of popular
prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain ratings
Why AOL? Lou Dobbs is the number one money maker for CNN so he is not going
anywhere as long as he makes money for CNN and right now he is making a ton
of money for CNN bashing "illegal immigration."
CNN is owned by Time Warner and Time Warner also owns AOL which is being
extensively promoted to increase its value as witnessed last week by
selling 5% of AOL stock to Google. This 5% cost Google $1 Billion setting a
benchmark value for AOL stock.
The Google-AOL deal gives AOL a valuation of $20 billion.
Billionaire Time Warner shareholder Carl Icahn who controls 3 percent of
Time Warner shares has been organizing a proxy battle for control of Time
Warner wants to sell AOL.
We could never directly muzzle Lou Dobbs because the revenue his trashing
of Hispanic/Latinos generates for CNN is huge and CNN's revenue belongs to
Time Warner.
The Achilles heel is AOL. If the value of AOL was to decrease dramatically
because of the loss of the Hispanic/Latino market, Time Warner, and more
so, Carl Icahn, would move to stop this hemorrhage. The only way to stop
the hemorrhage would be to meet the demands of the Hispanic/Latino
community: Remove Lou Dobbs off the Air.
Why is this so important?
The marches, rallies, and protests have been instrumental in the Senate
Judiciary Committee's adoption of the McCain Kennedy Immigration Reform
proposal and its submission to the Senate for debate. The monumental
protests have been heard in Washington and around the USA.
As monumental as the protests have energized the Hispanic community, the
protests will not take immigration over the top as witnessed by the Senate
failing to approve immigration reform.
Time now for a reality check: The US Senate debated immigration reform but
the Senate votes to adopt the Kennedy McCain proposal were simply not
there!
Something else now needs to be added to the protests to take us to the next
level if we are going to realize immigration reform as Hispanics favor.
Lou Dobbs
Lou Dobbs has become the champion zealot of bashing "illegal immigration"
each night at CNN promoting HR 4437 as the only way of dealing with "Broken
Borders" to protect the USA. The only way to stop Lou Dobbs, the raving
populist xenophobe, is to invoke "The Achilles heel: AOL."
The number of AOL subscribers is around 30 million. Many of these are US
Hispanics, in addition, AOL has a growing percentage of Latin America
accounts among new users. To increase market share, AOL is being marketed
to the Hispanic/Latino internet community for its ease of use. There are
other internet companies that are even easier to use, have faster speeds,
and are less expensive. With a national Ax AOL campaign especially among
our savvy youth with their ever increasing use of text messaging, IM, and
Internet, if Hispanics would drop AOL and move in droves to other internet
providers, significant pressure would result causing owners of AOL to
realize the only way to re-capture market share would be to remove CNN's
Lou Dobbs.
Removing Lou Dobbs off the air would completely disarm the national leader
of promoting HR 4437 and would be the most powerful message that could be
provided to the Congress, President Bush, 2008 presidential candidates and
the entire USA. The demise of Lou Dobbs would be fatal. There would be
nowhere for him to land because wherever he surfaced such as FOX, the Ax
AOL campaign would follow him by simply changing our name to Ax FOX.
If CNN does not remove Lou Dobbs, we will move to escalate to boycott all
CNN corporate sponsors beginning with sponsors of CNN en Espanol. We are
approaching $1 Trillion in annual Hispanic purchasing. This is the real
strength of Hispanic power.
Hispanic News on April 11 published a new website AxAOL.com which will
become the vehicle for getting the message out throughout the USA to
boycott AOL.
Presently there is no USA website that is coordinating marches, rallies or
protests and No4437.com could become this vehicle for anyone to post what
is happening in their community and to get messages out to everyone in the
USA.
To promote Ax AOL throughout the USA, Hispanic News is now selling
advertising using Sponsored Links. Buy an ad if you own a business or as an
individual use your name. The ads are $299 but donations are welcomed for
any amount. Help us make change in the USA by working together to remove
Lou Dobbs off the air at CNN. Buying Ax AOL t-shirts is expensive. Hispanic
News can not do this by ourselves.
You can also help by emailing everyone in your address book informing them
using AOL indirectly pays Lou Dobbs' salary.
Beginning May 1, the next level of marches, rallies, protests will now
include Ax AOL. The red Ax AOL t-shirts will become part of the protests.
Spread the word that anyone who uses AOL is subsidizing Lou Dobbs'
promotion of HR 4437's criminalizing immigrants and anyone who helps them.
Jon Garrido
Hispanic News
www.Hispanic.cc
www.AxAOL.com
JG@JonGarrido.com
602.244.1000
This morning (April 17) I received a request to appear today on the Lou
Dobbs show.
What follows is the request and my response.
I then emailed our entire email list to state an acceptance by any Hispanic
to appear on Lou Dobbs helps promotes his show and our goal is not to
promote but to remove Lou Dobbs off CNN. Therefore, all Hispanics are asked
to stop all appearances on the Lou Dobbs show. It is a theatrical show, not
true unbiased journalistic reporting.
Date: Monday, April 17, 2006 8:49 AM
Good morning.
I am a reporter for Lou Dobbs tonight in Los Angeles. Are you available for
an on-camera interview today about your effort to have Lou removed from the
air?
Sincerely,
Casey Wian
Correspondent
CNN Lou Dobbs tonight
323-993-5092
Date: Monday, April 17, 2006 9:01 AM
Mr. Wian,
We do not want to promote the Lou Dobbs show. We want to remove it from
CNN.
Our message to all Hispanics is to no longer agree to interviews with Lou
Dobbs.
Jon Garrido
Hispanic News
www.Hispanic.cc
www.AxAOL.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49769
Monday, April 17, 2006
INVASION USA
Illegal-alien activists target Lou Dobbs
'Ax AOL' campaign designed to pressure CNN parent company to fire newsman
Posted: April 17, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
CNN's Lou Dobbs
WASHINGTON -- Illegal-alien activists who have pulled off major rallies in
several cities in recent weeks plan to shift part of their focus May 1 by
targeting a newsman they see hurting their cause.
An "Ax AOL" campaign is being organized to coincide with a national action
by various groups defending illegal immigration, but the real target of
their wrath is Lou Dobbs of CNN.
"Why AOL?" asks one of the promoters of the campaign rhetorically. "Lou
Dobbs is the number one money maker for CNN so he is not going anywhere as
long as he makes money for CNN and right now he is making a ton of money
for CNN bashing 'illegal immigration.' CNN is owned by Time Warner and Time
Warner also owns AOL, which is being extensively promoted to increase its
value as witnessed last week by selling 5 percent of AOL stock to Google.
This 5 percent cost Google $1 billion setting a benchmark value for AOL
stock. The Google-AOL deal gives AOL a valuation of $20 billion.
Billionaire Time Warner shareholder Carl Icahn who controls 3 percent of
Time Warner shares has been organizing a proxy battle for control of Time
Warner wants to sell AOL."
But why Lou Dobbs?
According to the organizers: "Lou Dobbs has become the champion zealot of
bashing 'illegal immigration' each night at CNN promoting HR 4437 as the
only way of dealing with 'Broken Borders' to protect the USA. The only way
to stop Lou Dobbs, the raving populist xenophobe, is to invoke 'The
Achilles heel: AOL.'"
Interestingly, Jon Garrido of Hispanic News, the mastermind of the AOL
campaign, believes Dobbs is too popular to take on directly.
"We could never directly muzzle Lou Dobbs because the revenue his trashing
of Hispanic/Latinos generates for CNN is huge and CNN's revenue belongs to
Time Warner," he writes. "The Achilles heel is AOL. If the value of AOL was
to decrease dramatically because of the loss of the Hispanic/Latino market,
Time Warner, and more so, Carl Icahn, would move to stop this hemorrhage.
The only way to stop the hemorrhage would be to meet the demands of the
Hispanic/Latino community: Remove Lou Dobbs off the air."
The organizers believe the firing of Lou Dobbs would be the death knell of
the current move in Congress to pass tough border security measures and an
enforcement plan to deal with the millions of illegal aliens already
residing in the U.S.
"Removing Lou Dobbs off the air would completely disarm the national leader
of promoting HR 4437 and would be the most powerful message that could be
provided to the Congress, President Bush, 2008 presidential candidates and
the entire USA," Garrido writes. "The demise of Lou Dobbs would be fatal.
There would be nowhere for him to land because wherever he surfaced such as
FOX, the Ax AOL campaign would follow him by simply changing our name to Ax
FOX."
While Dobbs has become an almost legendary hero to Americans who feel
abandoned by their government on the illegal alien issue, he is being
vilified in many other quarters.
The left-leaning Media Channel isn't advocating any convoluted targeting of
AOL in its anti-Dobbs campaign -- just a direct boycott.
Indian-Americans have also launched their own petition to get Dobbs dumped.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, another radical group, is also attacking
Dobbs -- claiming his reports on immigration fail to acknowledge
anti-Hispanic racism is at the root of concerns about illegal immigration.
Even someone Dobbs has had on his show as a guest commentator is getting
into the act of calling for his firing by CNN. Enrique Morones, an activist
from Southern California, has reportedly written a letter to the president
of CNN calling for Dobbs' head.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/3872
Lou Dobbs: Bile Across The Border
By Tim Rutten
Source: LA Times
IT'S been a while since a major American news organization treated an
important national issue as irresponsibly as CNN now does immigration.
Ever since Fox News took over the top spot in the cable news ratings, CNN
has thrashed from one failed strategy to another. At the moment, the
network's reporters and anchors bleed all over every story they touch.
Does anybody really care how they feel about doing their job? Apparently
not, if the ratings are to be believed. The most recent numbers show that
even the hapless MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has eclipsed CNN in his time slot
among the most desired viewer demographic.
The network's one modest success story is Lou Dobbs. His shtick is to take
a page from Fox's playbook and retool the talk-radio sensibility for the
tube. No real reporting, just lots of opinion aggressively presented with a
recurring focus on the requisite obsession -- in his case, illegal
immigration and, to a lesser extent, what the correspondents on his nightly
program have taken to calling "so-called free trade." Night after night, he
rages against illegal immigrants and "unconscionable acts," like the
Senate's Kennedy-McCain bill. How far does he go? Well, in a report from
the Cancun summit Thursday, viewers were told that illegal immigrants were
bringing leprosy into the United States.
"Fair and balanced" already is taken, so one supposes that Dobbs' slogan
will have to be "bully and bluster."
His program doesn't actually add up to much more than that, but its
recklessness and violent rhetoric on immigration unsurprisingly attracts a
following -- and in cable it doesn't take much of a following to boost your
numbers. This week, Jonathan Klein -- who runs CNN, for now -- assured the
New York Times that Dobbs' anti-immigrant advocacy "is not a harbinger of
things to come at CNN. He is sui generis, one of a kind."
That's a sort of relief.
But it didn't stop Klein from plastering Dobbs, a onetime financial
journalist best known for fawning interviews with corporate chief
executives, and his views across every inch of the network all week long.
(Why does the image of drowning men and ropes come to mind?)
Last August, in an op-ed piece for the Arizona Republic, Dobbs wrote, "In
the United States, an obscene alliance of corporate supremacists, desperate
labor unions, certain ethnocentric Latino activist organizations and a
majority of our elected officials in Washington works diligently to keep
our borders open, wages suppressed and the American people all but helpless
to resist the crushing financial and economic burden created by the
millions of illegal aliens who crash our borders each year."
Gosh, that is an obscene alliance, and who better to blow the whistle than
a guy who has spent most of his television career spit-shining corporate
boots?
"They work just as hard to deny the truth to the American public," Dobbs
continued. "That's why almost every evening on my CNN broadcast we report
on this country's 'Broken Borders.' The truth is that U.S. immigration
policy is a tragic joke at the expense of hard-working middle-class
Americans."
IT'S an arduous business being the only honest man in the room, but Dobbs
is nothing if not dogged. (And as the only guy at CNN with a winning
ratings strategy, why not be?) Every single one of his broadcasts in
January contained a segment on illegal immigration. In February and March,
he took a break only to share his overflowing anxiety and rage over the
Dubai ports deal.
The pause allowed him to further refine his vision of his mission -- and
its enemies. "One of the things that frustrates many of us who care about
our country and the truth," Dobbs wrote on CNN's website Friday, "is the
rampant barrage of misinformation, disseminated by such vociferous special
interests, whether they are ethnocentric social activists, labor unions,
the Catholic Church or Corporate America. The truth is, advocates of
amnesty, guest-worker programs and open borders are unconcerned about the
280 million American citizens, the men and women of this country who work
for a living and their families."
Thank God the American media finally has found a voice willing to champion
working families against their traditional enemies: organized labor and the
Catholic Church. Just imagine the malevolence of organizations willing to
spend a century deceitfully advocating things like decent wages, safe
working conditions and healthcare so that they could lull people into
trusting their views on immigration. Finally, working men and women have
Lou to see through it all for them.
As for Dobbs' distaste for any display of ethnic origin -- it is, at least,
consistent. In a recent televised exchange with Janet Murguia, president of
the National Council of La Raza, he explained how offensive he found it
when demonstrators displayed Mexican flags:
"I don't think that we should have any flag flying in this country except
the flag of the United States. And let me tell you something else, since
we're talking about double standards I don't think there should be a
St. Patrick's Day. I don't care who you are. I think we ought to be
celebrating what is common about this country, what we enjoy as
similarities as people."
Now, maybe it is time for somebody to tell the sinister truth about St.
Patrick's Day -- and isn't the Catholic Church behind that too?
Or maybe Lou should get out more. Here in Los Angeles, the feast of St.
Patrick -- like, dare we mention it, Cinco de Mayo -- brings all sorts of
people together, mainly in bars. In fact, as an old business reporter,
you'd think Dobbs would recognize a great all-American tradition at work:
Breweries appropriate minor holidays from people's country of origin and
convince them that, here in America, they have to be commemorated by
drinking gallons of beer and vomiting in the streets.
Lou, this is capitalism at work, and the middle-class men and women who
operate saloons across this great country would be lost without these
holidays. Well, even messiahs make mistakes.
It's odd, though, how these middle-class working men and women -- denied
Dobbs' unshakeable grip on crystalline truth -- seem to have much more
complicated and nuanced views of immigration than he does. Thursday, for
example, a national poll conducted by Pew Research Center and the Pew
Hispanic Center found that the country is about evenly divided over
immigration issues. About 53% of the respondents in a nationwide sample
said they thought illegal immigrants should be sent home, while 40% said
they should be allowed to stay under some sort of guest worker program.
Half of those who thought undocumented immigrants ought to be deported
still believed that some ought to be allowed to remain as guest workers.
That's about what you'd expect to find about the sort of complex social,
political and economic problem over which serious-minded people are likely
to have serious differences.
Even more interesting was the fact that only a tiny fraction of those
surveyed think immigration is a major problem; just 4% believe it's the
nation's most pressing issue. That's a particularly significant finding
since Pew "over-sampled" urban areas -- that is, they made sure that their
6,000-person national sample included 800 respondents from each of five
metropolitan areas where you would expect feelings over immigration to run
highest. Only in Phoenix did a majority (55%) regard illegal immigration as
a "very big" community problem.
Maybe the rest of them are just too deeply in thrall to big business or
unions or the Catholic Church to see Dobbs' truth. Maybe they don't watch
CNN -- or maybe they recognize self-interested demagoguery when they see
it.
This week, CNN founder Ted Turner told an audience in Atlanta that he
regrets selling the network to its current operator, Time Warner. "I had a
sacred trust there, and I let it go."
It's easy to smile at Turner's now-periodic Lear-on-the-heath outbursts. He
could, of course, take some of the billions he earned selling his network
and its viewers out and try to buy it back. Somehow, that doesn't seem
likely. These days, the news media's proprietor class sometimes expresses
contrition but never does penance.
(Sorry Lou, like social justice, solidarity and the living wage, those are
Catholic concepts. Can we mention them without being divisive?)
Still, Turner's histrionics aside, it's hard not to be wistful for a time
when concepts like trust and betrayal and responsibility signified
something beyond a marketing strategy around CNN's headquarters.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/guests/s_441340.html
'Objectivity' no be-all and end-all
By Michael Kinsley
Sunday, April 9, 2006
CNN's Lou Dobbs, formerly a mild-mannered news anchor noted for his
palsy-walsy interviews with corporate CEOs, has turned into a raving
populist xenophobe. Ratings are up. It's like watching one of those
"makeover" shows that turn nerds into fops or bathrooms into ballrooms.
According to The New York Times, this demonstrates "that what works in
cable television news is not an objective analysis of the day's events" but
"a specific point of view on a sizzling-hot topic."
Nicholas Lemann made the same point in a recent New Yorker profile of Bill
O'Reilly. Cable, he wrote, "is increasingly a medium of outsize,
super-opinionated franchise personalities."
The head of CNN/US, Jonathan Klein, said that Lou Dobbs' license to emote
is "sui generis" among CNN anchors. But that is obviously not true.
Consider Anderson Cooper, CNN's rising star. His career was made when he
exploded in self-righteous anger and gave Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu an
emotional tongue-lashing about the inadequate relief effort after Hurricane
Katrina. Klein has said that Cooper has "a refreshing way of being the
anti-anchor ... getting involved the way you might."
Klein is right in sensing that objectivity is not a horse to bet the
network on. Or the newspaper either.
The newspaper industry is having a psychic meltdown over the threat posed
by the Internet. No one seriously doubts anymore that the Internet will
fundamentally change the news business. The uncertainty is whether it will
change only the method of delivering the product or will also change the
nature of the product.
Will people want, in any form, a collection of articles, written by
professional journalists from a detached and purportedly objective point of
view? Or are blogs and podcasts the cutting edge of a new model -- more
personalized, more interactive, more opinionated, more communal, less
objective?
It might even be a healthy development for American newspapers to abandon
the conceit of objectivity. This is not unknown territory. Most of the
world's newspapers already make no pretense of objectivity in the American
sense. But readers of the good ones come away as well informed as the
readers of any "objective" American newspaper. Another model, right here in
America, is the newsmagazines, all of which produce much outstanding
journalism with little pretense of objectivity.
Opinion journalism can be more honest than objective-style journalism
because it doesn't have to hide its point of view. All observations are
subjective. Writers freed of artificial objectivity can try to determine
the whole truth about their subject and then tell it whole to the world.
Their "objective" counterparts have to sort their subjective observations
into two arbitrary piles: truths that are objective as well and truths that
are just an opinion. That second pile of truths cannot be published, except
perhaps as a quote from someone else.
Without the pretense of objectivity, the fundamental journalist's
obligation of factual accuracy would remain. Opinion journalism brings new
ethical obligations as well. These can be summarized in two words:
intellectual honesty.
Are you writing or saying what you really think? Have you tested it against
the available counterarguments? Will you stand by an expressed principle in
different situations when it leads to an unpleasing conclusion? Are you
open to new evidence or an argument that might change your mind? Do you
retain at least a tiny, healthy sliver of a doubt about the argument you
choose to make?
Much of today's opinion journalism, especially on TV, is not a great
advertisement for the notion that American journalism could be improved by
more opinion and less effort at objectivity. But that's because the
conditions under which much opinion journalism is practiced today make
honesty harder and doubt practically impossible.
Unless, of course, I am completely wrong.
Michael Kinsley, former editor of Slate, writes a weekly column for The
Washington Post.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/17/ldt.01.html
LOU DOBBS TONIGHT
White House New Chief of Staff Signals Staff Shake-Up; Defending Rumsfeld
Aired April 17, 2006 - 17:59 ET
DOBBS: Tonight, a group in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens has begun
what it calls a national effort to force me and this program off the air.
They want me fired. And the group says I should no longer be allowed to
speak the truth about the nation's illegal alien crisis, all because I'm
against illegal immigration and because I'm for border security.
Casey Wian reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Supporters of amnesty for
illegal aliens are now targeting LOU DOBBS TONIGHT by launching a campaign
to remove Dobbs from CNN's air. The movement is spearheaded by Jon Garrido,
a former Tucson, Arizona, city employee who is contemplating a run for the
Senate. He says Dobbs is making a ton of money for CNN bashing illegal
immigration.
But instead of targeting CNN, the group is going after AOL, also owned by
CNN's parent company, Time Warner.
ROBERT THOMPSON, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: I think the idea here is that Lou
Dobbs is too tough of a target. He's -- his ratings are really high. He is
really an anchor of that -- of that operation, but you can go after other
things in the corporate family which may be more vulnerable to these kinds
of complaints.
WIAN: Garrido refused to be interviewed. Instead, he wrote this response:
"We do not want to promote the Lou Dobbs show. We want to remove it from
CNN. Our message is to all Hispanics is to no longer agree to interviews
with Lou Dobbs."
The so-called "Ax AOL" campaign states that Dobbs engages in "trashing of
Hispanic Latinos" and calls him "... the national leader of promoting HR
4437," the border security bill passed by the House of Representatives. In
fact, Dobbs does neither. Earlier this month he interviewed the bill's
sponsor, Republican Congressman James Sensenbrenner.
DOBBS: I'd like to take some time and just set the record straight on some
very critically important issues.
REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), WISCONSIN: Sure.
DOBBS: One, why does the Sensenbrenner legislation -- and this is something
I disagree with as well -- make it a felony for an illegal alien in this
country, rather than a misdemeanor?
SENSENBRENNER: I offered an amendment to reduce the felony penalty to a
misdemeanor.
WIAN: An AOL spokesman says the company is not worried about the effort to
convince Latinos to drop the service. CNN says, "We have absolutely no
intent to relieve Lou Dobbs of his duties. Anyone who actually watches LOU
DOBBS TONIGHT knows that Lou is not anti- immigration but, through his
reports, merely wants to hold government officials accountable."
The Ax AOL campaign says it will begin targeting CNN advertisers if the
initial effort fails.
It's not the first time illegal alien amnesty advocates have protested LOU
DOBBS TONIGHT. They've picketed CNN's Atlanta headquarters in February to
no effect.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIAN: Financial and media analysts say the latest effort also stands little
chance of success, one even saying, Lou, that kicking you off the air would
set a very dangerous precedent. Lou?
DOBBS: Well as you might guess, Casey, I couldn't agree more. I could think
of nothing more dangerous. It's -- the idea that they would choose to go
after AOL is peculiar. It's a free country, they're entitled to do what
they will.
But the idea that they would suggest that I'm in -- among those, I mean,
I've got a clear record on this broadcast of what I believe and what I
think is appropriate, and what I've advocated. And what I've advocated is
border security and what I've advocated is a complete, complete end to
illegal immigration in this country. If anybody was going to get a felony
charge, I think it should be the employers of this country that are hiring
illegal labor.
WIAN: It's another distortion and something we hear from the pro-amnesty
side all the time, Lou.
DOBBS: Let's go to one other issue. What is the latest you hear about this
May 1st, it's -- that date chosen for obvious reasons, it's a rather
radical date, if I can put it that way, May 1st for demonstrations in favor
of amnesty against border security and a boycott.
WIAN: Promoters are pushing forward with that effort, but as we reported
last week, they are having a lot of trouble -- excuse me, Lou. They are
having a lot of trouble getting support from the entire Latino and Hispanic
community. A lot of people realize that...
DOBBS: ... Casey, I'm going to interrupt you, if I may, because we've
fallen victim to live television there. If you could just repeat what you
had said there.
WIAN: Well as we reported last week, they are pushing forward with this
effort for the May day boycott, but they are now running into a lot of
barriers.
A lot of people in the Hispanic community are now saying that this is not a
good idea, to keep school children home from school and to economically
target businesses that in many respects will only hurt the Hispanics that
they say they are trying to help, Lou.
DOBBS: And you said Hispanics. And this press release talked about
Hispanics as well. Now, if these groups want to use Hispanic as if it's
some sort of monolithic, homogeneous description of a group of people in
this country, they are utterly wrong. This is about illegal immigration.
This is about amnesty, blanket amnesty, and this is about subordinating
border security to their interest and I don't think that's going to work
either. Do you?
WIAN: No, I don't think it will, Lou. And we wanted to ask, of course, the
promoter of this effort to get you off the air, those very questions and he
declined, as we reported, to talk to us, Lou.
DOBBS: Well he's obviously no fan of free speech of any kind. Thank you
very much, I appreciate it, Casey Wian.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0608boycott.html
Latino activist calls for boycott of auto dealer over Prop. 200
Yvonne Wingett
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 8, 2005 12:00 AM
A Mesa activist on Tuesday called for a boycott of a business owned by one
of Proposition 200's key champions.
LULAC member Jon Garrido's appeal to withhold patronage of Rusty Childress'
auto dealership is the latest in a series of protests, boycotts and marches
in response to the Nov. 2 passage of the immigration law, also supported by
many Latinos.
Some of the events have drawn thousands onto city streets and the state
Capitol and they have been praised as impressive symbolic public
demonstrations. But they've also been sporadic and mostly ineffective at
influencing public opinion about the measures, experts said.
Childress markets his auto store to the Hispanic market, but he should be
financially spanked for supporting Proposition 200, said Garrido, who is
also calling for General Motors Corp. to close the doors of Childress
Automall at 22nd Avenue and Camelback Road.
"He says he sells to Hispanic customers, but he's the father of Proposition
200," said Garrido at a downtown Phoenix news conference. "We see the
boycott as a laser-guided bomb aimed at Childress Buick. We're not going to
be happy until we close the doors of Childress Buick."
"We" is Garrido, the founder and only member of a new organization, the
National Hispanic Legal Defense and Education Center, which has not yet
been incorporated or established with a board of directors.
Childress scoffed at Garrido's threat to boycott the family-owned
dealership. He pointed out that his support of "border security" has won
widespread public support for Proposition 200.
"Most people openly support me and tell me they're doing business with me
because of my efforts in this area," said Childress, who helped line up
money to put Proposition 200 before voters. "They're glad that someone is
sticking up for the citizen taxpayer, where their politicians have not."
GM likely will not get involved, an official said. The company is in a
legal contract with Childress' dealership and cannot shut him down based on
his politics.
Another group led by day labor leader Salvador Reza, plans a statewide
boycott on July 1. Hispanic advocate Elias Bermudez has also gathered some
support in recent weeks in his quest to protest Proposition 200.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-aol14apr14,1,1839518.story?coll=la-mininav-technology
AOL Blocks Critics' E-Mails
By Chris Gaither and Joseph Menn
Times Staff Writers
April 14, 2006
It's never been easy to win a fight against people who buy ink by the
barrel. The same may be true about those who buy bandwidth by the terabit -
as a coalition fighting Internet giant AOL discovered Thursday.
A group of 600 organizations that includes the AFL-CIO and the Gun Owners
of America has been circulating an online petition protesting AOL's plans
to begin charging extra to route e-mail around its spam filters.
On Thursday, though, the world's biggest Internet service provider blocked
e-mails containing links to the petition against the "CertifiedEmail" plan
at DearAOL.com.
AOL called it a simple technical glitch and fixed the problem by
midafternoon. The company's critics denounced the blocking as censorship -
and said it supported their belief that Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and other
Internet service providers manage e-mail haphazardly.
Either way, the incident illustrates the delicate balance between democracy
and Internet gate-keeping. How do Internet service providers clamp down on
spammers without hampering the grass-roots campaigns taking advantage of
the medium's openness? And who hasn't had e-mail to a friend bounced back
as spam?
"It's an example of our point: that they are arbitrary and capricious in
the way they deliver e-mail," said Wes Boyd, president of online political
group MoveOn.org Civic Action. "If AOL can just decide without consultation
of anyone that they can censor a website, then what are the chances for
democracy?"
AOL spokesman Nicholas J. Graham countered that the messages were diverted
because of a software glitch that incorrectly labeled "a number of"
websites as being related to spammers or scammers. As evidence of the
company's good intentions, he said, the campaign had spread online since
its February launch without interference from AOL.
"We've been accurately and responsibly delivering tens and tens of millions
of e-mails containing that Web link, and we will continue to do so," he
said.
Since the petition started, more than 350,000 people have signed it at
DearAOL.com. The coalition behind the site wants AOL to reconsider
CertifiedEmail, calling it an "e-mail tax" that would create a two-tiered
e-mail system and give AOL less incentive to deliver regular messages whose
senders didn't pay a premium.
"It shouldn't have to cost legitimate e-mail marketers and senders more to
get past filters," said John Mozena, co-founder of the Coalition Against
Unsolicited Commercial Email. "We've joked that AOL could become the Don
Corleone of e-mail: 'Nice e-mail newsletter you've got going. It would be a
shame if it got hurt by getting caught in our filters.' "
AOL's plan would offer ways for companies to bypass spam filters, for a
fee. By forcing them to comply with certain rules, AOL contended, it could
ensure the delivery of e-mail that its 19.5 million subscribers in the U.S.
want and make it easier to block e-mail sent by spammers and con artists.
AOL said the program would help its customers. When they see the
CertifiedEmail symbol on an e-mail purporting to be from PayPal, for
example, they can be sure it really is from PayPal, not from online
scammers hunting for personal information.
CertifiedEmail, operated by Goodmail Systems Inc., lets businesses send
newsletters, receipts and other e-mail that consumers request. AOL said it
would charge corporations a fraction of a cent per message, but let many
nonprofits and activism groups participate for free.
"There will be no requirement, ever, for not-for-profits who deliver e-mail
to AOL members, to pay for e-mail certification and delivery," AOL
postmaster Charles Stiles said in March.
U.S. Internet giants have moved several times to reassure critics who have
feared that the companies would favor their own content, for example, over
that produced by others. Instances of unfair play have been rare.
But in Canada last year, phone company Telus admitted blocking subscriber
access to a website run by its striking employee union. The site criticized
Telus, but the company said it went too far by posting confidential
information and recommending that customers jam the firm's phone lines.
And the AOL incident came as Congress mulls over whether to allow telephone
and cable companies to charge premium fees to make sure Internet content
such as downloadable movies and music are delivered quickly and reliably.
A business owner in Michigan first discovered Thursday's problem and
alerted other members of the coalition, who sent test messages to their
AOL-using friends and family. Messages without the DearAOL.com link went
through. Messages with the link bounced.
The Times independently verified the coalition's claims with test e-mails
to an AOL account.
"The fact of the matter is that AOL's system is far from perfect, and they
do block information," said Timothy Karr, campaign director for Free Press,
a national media reform organization involved in DearAOL.com. "Whether it's
intentional or not is beside the point. We see this as censorship."
But others said AOL's critics should be grateful that Thursday's glitch
boosted their cause.
"One shouldn't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence,"
said Internet governance professor Jonathan Zittrain of Oxford University.
Nonetheless, "to the extent that this campaign was about raising awareness,
AOL has contributed greatly to that."
www.ZaZona.com
Support this Newsletter and ZaZona.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm
To Subscribe, Unsubscribe or to view the Archive go to:
http://www.zazona.com/shameh1b/JobDestructionNews.htm
Back to archives