By jmillican on November 11, 2009
After considerable pressure, Dobbs announced tonight his resignation from CNN, effective immediately.
Watch it here:
http://mediamatters.org/static/clips/2009/11/11/421/dobbs-20091111-quit.flv
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By jmillican on November 11, 2009
The New York Times‘ Media Decoder blog reports:
Lou Dobbs, the longtime CNN anchor whose anti-immigration views made him a TV lightning rod, plans to announce Wednesday that he is leaving the network, two network employees said.
A CNN executive confirmed that Mr. Dobbs will announce his resignation plans on his 7 p.m. program. His resignation is effective immediately; tonight’s program will be his last on CNN. His contract was not set to expire until the end of 2011.
Mr. Dobbs informed his staff members of his intentions in a meeting Wednesday afternoon. He did not immediately respond to a telephone call seeking comment.
Well known for his political positions, Mr. Dobbs is an outlier at CNN, which has sought to position itself as a middle ground of sorts in the fractious cable news arena. Perhaps hinting at plans for an exit from CNN, Mr. Dobbs met with Roger Ailes, the chairman of the Fox News Channel, last month. At the time Mr. Dobbs was viewed as a potential hire for the Fox Business Network.
The CNN employees said Wednesday that they did not know if Mr. Dobbs was moving to another network. He has placed new emphasis in recent months on his afternoon radio show, which debuted in March 2008.
Last month the New Jersey State Police were called to Mr. Dobbs home to investigate a report of gunfire. Mr. Dobbs suggested that his family had been singled out because of his views on illegal immigration and border security.
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By jmillican on November 5, 2009
This is the question poised by Jordan Berg in a November 5 Stop Big Media blog post. Berg wrote:
Imagine if a CNN anchor were permitted to spout for 60 minutes every night that blacks are criminals and that blacks are on welfare and rotting in jails, costing Americans billions of dollars while contributing nothing to society.
Imagine if a CNN anchor used talking points from a group whose founders believe “some races of people are genetically and intellectually superior to other races.” Imagine that this same anchor warned of a secret plot by blacks to take over the country.
You’ll have to use your imagination because no one would be given a platform on CNN to spew such obscene racist remarks about black people.
And yet, because these “news segments” are about undocumented workers in the United States, CNN permits this hate speech almost every night on anchor Lou Dobbs’ show. Why? Is it less racist because it’s about Latinos?
[...]
CNN should be accountable to its viewers, who are demanding unbiased quality journalism. Judging from CNN’s declining viewership (Dobbs can count me as a former viewer) and the growing grassroots campaigns against Dobbs, the message is clear: Racist reporting won’t be tolerated, whether it’s about blacks or Latinos.
Imagine if a CNN anchor were allowed to talk for 60 minutes every night about how black people are spreading “tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria” in America.
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By jmillican on November 5, 2009
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By jmillican on October 29, 2009
Politico reports:
“Two weeks ago, CNN rejected an advertisement from Media Matters and America’s Voice, an immigration reform group, to “drop” host Lou Dobbs because of his immigration views.
Today, America’s Voice announced that the “Drop Dobbs” ad will get some play in major markets beginning tonight on one of CNN’s rivals: It will air during MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
America’s Voice executive director Frank Sharry, in a statement, expressed why his organization is targeting Dobbs, and by extension, CNN: “It seems that CNN’s President Jonathan Klein actually believes CNN can perform a sleight of hand and no one will notice: court Latinos with one hand, while spreading misinformation and vilifying them with the other. They can’t. The shadow cast by Dobbs undermines the network’s credibility every day he remains on the air. Now it’s up to CNN to choose between standing up for Dobbs or living up to its slogan as ‘the most trusted name in news.’”
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By jmillican on October 27, 2009
Think Progress reports that Fox News host Geraldo Rivera recently took Dobbs to task for the heated rhetoric so often surrounding the immigration debate. Rivera reportedly said: ” Lou Dobbs is almost single-handedly responsible for creating, for being the architect of the young-Latino-as-scapegoat for everything that ails this country.”
Dobbs, true to form, did not take Geraldo’s criticism lightly. On his radio show, Dobbs fired back, ranting about the “annoying” Geraldo’s “vile stupidity.” Geraldo, Dobbs fumed, “wouldn’t know a fact if it hit him in the rear end.”
Listen:
http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/video/2009/10/26/dobbs-20091026-geraldo.flv
UPDATE:
Watch Geraldo attack Dobbs:
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By jmillican on October 27, 2009
From Alternet:
Pobre CNN.
The cable news network hoped its “Latino In America” special — a two-night “journey into the homes and hearts of a minority group destined to change America” – would replicate the success of its Black In America series last year, which was watched by more than 13 million viewers. Instead, the series has been eclipsed by a growing controversy over CNN’s resident xenophobe, Lou Dobbs, and an expanding movement to get him booted off the air.
[...]
Here in New York, protesters gathered outside CNN’s offices in Manhattan. “What comes out of Lou Dobbs’ mouth is hatred for Latinos and undocumented immigrants in the United States,” Lovato said at the rally, noting that Dobbs’s support of extremists has had deadly consequences, as in the case of a nine-year-old girl named Brisenia Flores, who was killed with her father in Arizona this past spring by members of the Minutemen, a so-called “civilian defense corps” against undocumented immigrants.
“Lou Dobbs is not telling his audience to go out and kill and hurt and attack immigrants,” said Lovato, “but he provides a platform for those that do.”
On Thursday, the “Latino In America” story was picked up by the New York Times, which noted the series’s omission of portions of an interview with Isabel Garcia, a civil rights lawyer who was featured in the documentary. “She said she called [notorious Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio] and Mr. Dobbs ‘the two most dangerous men to our communities,’ and added that ‘because of them, our communities are being terrorized in a real way.’ She also asserted that CNN was ‘promoting lies and hate about our community’ by broadcasting Mr. Dobbs’s program. The comments were not included when the interview was broadcast.”
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