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IMMIGRATION ISSUE

O

OldiesCat

Guest
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0807/5449.html

All we hear from the fare right in this country is about Media Bias- it does exist but more and more every day, it's only fair and balanced leaning to the far right.

I thought news/talk was supposed to REFLECT public opinion, not form it. I believe to this day that most normal, everyday American citizens didn't have nearly the strong opinion on Immigration Reform that the right leaning talkers/TV hosts had and the accompanying article confirms my suspicions. Yet, Rush Limbaugh feigns indignance every time anybody voices an opinion that isn't pro-Bush and screams "liberal bias". There's bias alright, just not the b.s. these folks shove down our throats every day.

(OK, rant over now-thanks)
;D
 
you could hear geraldo's opinions about it today on the laura ingraham show (see hotair.com)

Media bias on the far right: Geraldo, Katie Couric, Keith Olbermann, Robert F Kennedy Jr., Rolling
Stone, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, NPR, NY Times, Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, Al Franken,
Michael Moore, Al "A Convenient Lie" Gore, Hollywood, Bill Moyers, Bill Maher, magazines, newspapers, etc. They're
all far right wackos too, eh?

They tried liberal radio. It failed. No wait, it succeeded and actually got taxpayer money to support
it--it's called NPR

The latest liberal talk radio failure: Steinem and Hanoi Jane's female talk network.
If Al Franken could have attracted 20 million listeners with his monotone voice, great, but
it didn't succeed in the free marketplace of ideas. Now they want to bring back the UnFairness
Doctrine to gut freedom of the press...to make talk programmers shy away from controversial
issues, thus we will have gardening shows on in the daytime instead of political talk.
Conspiracy theory ranters + unfunny comedians + snooze-fest NPR-style voices =
the failure of liberal talk radio.
 
Hear Geraldo talk with Laura Ingraham about immigration. Did he give her a straight answer, once?
He does also contradict his earlier statement that "Fox News is all Republicans, exc. for Colmes"
(what about you, Mr. Al Capone's Vault?) when he says that Fox News does present differing viewpoints.
Anyway:

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/20/audio-alert-ingraham-vs-geraldo-on-immigration/

An interesting opinion from a comment at The Politico: "90% of Americans were against this amnesty bill - folks on both sides of the aisle. Patriots like Savage, GOP hacks like Rush and Hannity and self serving idiots like O'Reilly were just putting a microphone up to the peoples voice."
 
But we know they made it their mission in life to make sure the Immigration Reform died, just like it's their mission in life to prop up Iraq. I don't think most of them gave a rat's a$$ what most American thought of it. It no longer has anything to do with what's best for America but what their party wants.

And, it's worth noting I didn't necessarily think this Immigration Reform was sufficient.
 
Wow Oldies Cat, you think that article backed your opinion up? I thought is did the exact opposite. Talk about bias. Look, I don't think conservative talk radio has enough listeners to sway American policy. Even with their numbers, it is still a small part of the population. Most Americans are against illegal immigration. I have seen as much as 80% to 90%. You couldn't find 80% of the American people to agree up is up.

As far as what the party wants?? I remember politicians on both sides wanting that stupid, BAD bill. Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Beck and most others disagreed with Bush and made it well known.

How about enforcing the laws we already have. There's plenty of laws on the books being ignored.
 
photog said:
How about enforcing the laws we already have. There's plenty of laws on the books being ignored.
Click to expand...

I totally agree that if we just enforced the laws enacted during the Reagan administration we'd be in a lot better shape and I agree most Americans are against illegal immigration.

My point is that this issue was not the heated, passionate, all-consuming situation as the conservative talkers made it appear and I believe much of that (to credit another poster on a different board a couple of months ago) was to take attention away from the deteriorating situtation in Iraq.
 
I disagree totally. It was a subject discussed alot. It was discussed especially on Savage and Laura Ingraham as well as on Glenn Beck. Being in the Houston area, it was tackled by our local hosts as well.
 
photog said:
I disagree totally. It was a subject discussed alot. It was discussed especially on Savage and Laura Ingraham as well as on Glenn Beck. Being in the Houston area, it was tackled by our local hosts as well.
Click to expand...

You sort of illustrated my point. Your points of reference are among those who swing the farthest right in media. Any other perspectives you (perhaps with divergent views on the topic) you checked out?

(And, again, this isn't me endorsing that Immigration Reform bill-far from it. Just reminding folks the souce of the loudest backlash on Immigration- mostly not the American people but conservative talk radio/tv hosts).
 
I don't think talk hosts can fire up the people enough to melt the phone line in Washington. The people were pasionate about it. There were more calls to politicians than ever even tuned into am radio. You give conservative hosts much too much credit. A small percentage of the population ever tune into the people I mentioned.
 
photog said:
I don't think talk hosts can fire up the people enough to melt the phone line in Washington. The people were pasionate about it. There were more calls to politicians than ever even tuned into am radio. You give conservative hosts much too much credit. A small percentage of the population ever tune into the people I mentioned.
Click to expand...

Ever hear of the term "small but vocal minority"? Sure they can have an effect. Look what that movement did to the Dixie Chicks. I think you may be underestimating the power of people and mobilizing them for a cause.
 
I think the Dixie Chicks shot themselves in the foot by pissing off their own audience. I didn't care for what they said, but soooo what? I never listened to them, so it didn't matter what I thought. I do, however, believe in the power of the people. The PEOPLE were against the immigration bill because it was bad. Not only talk radio audience, but most of the people. If you think talk radio is so powerful, why don't we have our way on more issues. Actually, we have lost many battles in the past. If talk hosts are "mouthpieces" for Bush, why did we loose the mid term election? Because, it's not true. Because, talk radio listeners are not the mind numbed robots you like to say we are.
 
I'll repeat what I posted several years ago: the Dixie Chicks downfall was largely due to the mobilization of right wing operatives who flooded radio stations with complaints, therefore making the outrage feel much more profound that it truly was.

The midterms elections were lost because with scandal after scandal, the American people stopped believing a lot of the bluster. Just because you're loud & proud doesn't mean you win every fight but to deny the influence is a little naiive.
 
The Dixie Chicks couldn't sell tickets to their concerts either. I don't think phone calls from people who didn't listen to them to begin with were the problem. The Dixie Chicks were country. Country listeners tend to be a little more jingoistic than say Rock fans. So, the Dixie Chicks geared themselves more to rock. I don't think talk radio contributed to their problems. They created it themselves.

The Republican politicians pissed off their own base. Yes, there were a few scandals and those scandelous ones were run out of office. The base was disgusted with the scandals. I believe the Dems in scandal are still in office.
 
I dunno...one host I listen to, Mike McConnell (WLW, WGST and others weekdays, "The Weekend" nationwide) pretty much takes all callers unless they're really whacked out and it's been difficult fopr him to get off the illegal immigration discussion..a lot of it driven by truckers listening on XM to be sure. McConnell will even argue the point that the cost of rounding up 20 million people, (who aren't going to patiently wait for the deportation bus to come by), building holding cells for them all to wait for the hearing they're entitled to, hiring judges and jail staff, etc would be VERY cost prohibitive and impractical.
 
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