Mitch Weiss,Jeffrey Collins/AP intro new immigration article device: the Sympathetic Victim/Representative

In the past there were PIIPPs. Now, a growing number of articles about immigration raids and the like are employing a device that I'll henceforth refer to as the use of SVRs: the "Sympathetic Victim/Representative". When an immigration raid occurs, instead of interviewing the local residents who saw their wages decline, hack reporters turn to one of the "victims" of the raid (i.e., an illegal alien) and allow him or her to say obviously illogical things completely unopposed. That sympathetic "victim" also serves to represent the other "victims".

The first instance of the "SVR technique" we'll introduce comes from Mitch Weiss and Jeffrey Collins of the Associated Press in their report about the Greenville SC raid:

[two introductory paragraphs giving a summary of the raid, then the SVR is brought out:]

Maria Juan, 22, was one of about 50 relatives and friends who huddled at the edge of the plant after the raid, some weeping and others talking frantically on cell phones. She was seeking information about her 68-year-old grandmother, a legal immigrant from Guatemala who went to work without identification papers but was later released.

"Families are going to be broken apart," Juan said. "There will be kids and babies left behind. Why are they doing this? Why? They didn't do anything. They only wanted to work."

Workers began running down hallways crying and screaming, said Herbert Rooker, 54, a third-shift janitor. He wore a blue band on his wrist, indicating agents had determined he was in the country legally.

The last paragraph is something they threw in for extra credit: the CSVR or "Citizen Sympathetic Victim/Representative". That's supposed to make the reader think, "it could happen to me too, I could be a victim of George Bush's evil crackdown on the undocumented."

For another recent SVR example, see the report from Miguel Bustillo and Richard Fausset of the Los Angeles Times. Unlike Weiss and Collins, they lead off with the SVR, who says:

"They said we took their jobs, but I was working from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m... I didn't see them working like us."

UPDATE: Weiss and Collins have an additional weepfest designed to support illegal activity (link):

When Magdalana Domingo Ramirez Lopez moved to this South Carolina city nearly two years ago to work at the chicken processing plant, she felt at home...

Anyone who reads this site can probably write the rest of the article in their sleep.

Immigration_piipps · Wed, 10/08/2008 - 13:06 · Importance: 1