March 01, 2008

Deborah Howell, Washington Post ombudsman: WaPo immigration coverage mostly OK

Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell offers "Immigration Coverage in the Crossfire" (link):

Readers who oppose illegal immigration often complain that The Post has too much sympathy for those living in the United States illegally and too little for those who oppose this...

...A review of immigration stories, mostly local, over the past year and several months, showed that the coverage was mostly straightforward and informative...

Obvious to those who've seen my discussion of their articles, it's been anything but that. I've discussed dozens of WaPo immigration stories that were full of lies and/or misleading or incomplete statements. The latest example involved Joel Achenbach comparing those who oppose illegal immigration to the Nazis. Howell lauds N.C. Aizenman for another story, and discussing the flaws in that is left as an exercise. However, about a year ago he or she gushed over El Salvador's consul general. In January, Jonathan Weisman misled regarding Mike Huckabee's immigration stance. They printed a contributed article from Gary Jacobsen describing how to hire a day laborer. I could sit here for the rest of the day typing those in, but you get the point: Howell is misleading her readers just as badly as the WaPo's "reporters" do.

She does take the WaPo to task for some issues with their coverage, such as using "anti-immigrant" instead of "anti-illegal immigration". But, then she engages in something similar herself:

Have the views of those against illegal immigrants been fully told? My review included many stories quoting opponents -- as well as their march on the Mall. Some feel they've been portrayed as racist and xenophobic. While some have been quoted expressing views that might be interpreted that way, most have not. Halsey said it has been "very challenging to write effectively about people opposed to illegal immigration, because they are very passionate and seem suspicious of our motives and are less welcoming to our attention when we try to talk to them about their motivations."

While some or many opposed to illegal immigration might be "against illegal immigrants", others might not be opposed to them on a personal level, and Howell fails to make that distinction. It's also a very rare day when the WaPo questions the motivations of those who support illegal immigration; their too-left-even-for us report on Mexicanos Sin Fronteras might come close.

And, consider this:

On terminology, Chip Beck, a State Department officer and former U.S. consul, believes it's important to use "illegal alien." Beck, who said he was not speaking for the State Department, said, "Foreign nationals who come across the border without papers or who overstay their visa are deemed 'illegal aliens.' Those are the legally correct terms. . . . The correct terminology is not derogatory but carries precise meanings under law." He sent a copy of the federal law that says: "The term 'alien' means any person not a citizen or national of the United States."

The Post does not use "alien" in news stories and prefers "illegal immigrant." Even if "alien" is legal terminology, to me, it sounds like someone from outer space. "Undocumented workers" is also discouraged. The Post stylebook says of "undocumented": "When used to describe immigrants, this is a euphemism that obscures an important fact -- that they are in this country illegally."

As a commenter says at the article:

How dimwitted can you get? Is this the intellectual level the Post is running at? Did these people cover the Alien and Sedition Acts in 7th grade history?

Posted to Immigration2008a at March 1, 2008 09:55 AM