Jose Vargas (see the link) recently set off an intramural battle in the left-leaning media with his misleading campaign to get the New York Times and the Associated Press drop the term "illegal immigrant".

In that battle, the New York Times has taken the marginally more pro-American side of things, sticking with the term even as other sources use misleading euphemisms such as "undocumented immigrant". (The correct term to use is "illegal alien", see immigration terminology).

Univision fired back, writing a series of articles taking the Times to task.

For a recap of the story so far, as well as yet another reason why opposing illegal immigration is vital, see this Huffington Post story ( peekURL.com/z6ZVZWc ):

In a separate post filed the same day titled "The Times Is Behind the Times," Univision noted that media outlets that aim to reach Latino audiences keep away from the term "illegal immigrant."

In many newsrooms where Latinos have a seat at the table, the term "illegal immigrant" has been dropped. (NBC News, which started NBC Latino this year, dropped the term. (ABC News), which is part of our new partnership with Univision, dropped the term. CNN, after making recent Latino hires, announced that they prefer to use "undocumented." The Miami Herald and the (San Antonio Express News), which both have a large Hispanic readership, have dropped the term. Even Fox News, a cable channel viewed by the public to be the most conservative network in a 2009 Pew survey, took a step in the same direction when it dropped illegal in favor of "undocumented" on their Fox News Latino site.

The Huffington Post prefers the term "undocumented immigrant," and has avoided the term "illegal immigrant" since 2008.

...The National Association of Hispanic Journalists launched a campaign to get newspapers to drop the term "illegal immigrant" back in 2006. "It is much easier to dehumanize and to silence somebody when you're calling them an illegal," then-Executive Director of NAHJ Ivan Roman told the American Journalism Review in 2010.

On Sunday's edition of "Up with Chris Hayes," journalist Maria Hinojosa echoed the notion that media outlets may decline to drop the term "illegal immigrant" because not enough Latinos have input in style decisions. Almost half of likely Hispanic voters find the term "illegal immigrant" offensive, according to a Fox News Latino poll released this year.

"I want to know who's in those style meetings and how diverse they are," said Maria Hinojosa.

If you want to oppose those sources' attempts to mislead their tens of millions of viewers, you can start by doing what's outlined at the end of the post about Vargas' effort. You can also add in opposition to those who should be strongly opposing those sources' attempts to mislead, but who think that less important issues are more important.