What Lou Dobbs Calls the News

There’s a fun little video called What We Call the News (JibJab), which lampoons the state of American media today, which has degenerated from “anchors of integrity and three channels to choose” to “a ratings race, with the anchors replaced by blondes with big, fake boobs”. To be fair, it’s not these superficial qualities that form the crux of the problem—Lou Dobbs, for example, is neither blonde nor especially busty. But he exemplifies the problem with the news with his shocking incompetence and disregard for fact.

Helen Thomas: Journalist

That’s not to say that it’s all bad out there—Helen Thomas, the old battle-axe of the White House Press Corps is still giving it all she’s got, taking it to Dana Perino in Give Helen Thomas a Raise! (Crooks and Liars). She inquired —for what must have been the ten-thousandth time—as to why Bush refuses to change his position on Iraq and “[w]hy … the American people [don’t] have a say?” Dana Perino sweetly stooped to offer Helen a nugget from her overflowing basket of constitutional wisdom:

“The American people have had a say. They elected a President who is their commander in chief.”

Once every four years, Americans get to decide, Helen. In between, Bush is the decider. Helen responded with “Do You [sic] think that was the vote from the American people?” and “You mean how many more people we kill?”. Perino lost her cool over this one, because America is so clearly the good guy in her world and any insinuation (or direct accusation, as the case may be) to the contrary is barely-tolerable sedition. So she lashed out at Helen, chastising:

“Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position bestowed upon you by your colleagues to make such statements. This is. [sic] It is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive.”

Perino has clearly mistaken her podest for some sort of royal proclamation apparatus. It is indeed an “honor and privilege” to serve the cause of truth. That has nothing to do with pulling punches with known liars like Perino. Helen didn’t bat an eye at Perino’s anti-constitutional blather and doggedly pursued her line of inquiry by asking “[d]o you know how many we have [killed] since the start of this war?”

Follow the link for the full transcript and video.

Lou Dobbs: Entertainer

Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman hosted Lou Dobbs on their show today, transcripted at CNN Anchor Lou Dobbs Challenged on Immigration Issues (Democracy Now!). Lou did not behave, seemingly unaware that he wasn’t on his own show: he continuously interrupted, scoffed and acted downright rude, slurring opposing viewpoints with snide asides that passed too quickly to be noted or refuted. He called the co-hosts “ridiculous” and “ideologues”. He was, on the whole, childish in his refusal to enter debate on a level higher than that to which he was accustomed on his own show.

He was clearly put out that he was not accorded what he felt was the amount of respect due to a towering figure of journalistic stature such as himself. He was probably surprised to see that anyone could be harsher with him than Jon Stewart, who was not harsh at all and who openly acknowledges that he softballs guests because he’s not a journalist, he’s a comedian. Being enveloped daily in the cloistered echo chambers of the throbbing heart of American media, cable TV news, we should probably forgive Dobbs for not knowing that there is, by definition, a difference between journalism and entertainment. He is clearly unprepared for anything of the first variety, though if asked, he would likely be of the opinion that he is a journalist, as opposed to an entertainer. In the real world, facts are based on research and a concord between individuals who have done a modicum of thinking about a subject. Dobbs thinks that claiming something in a confident voice imbues it with truth. He thinks that being somewhat accurate most of the time and lying outrageously only a little, while skewing everything towards a viewpoint unsupported by sufficient evidence amounts to what he terms “a body of work”. It is not a body of work; it is entertainment masking as journalism and it has a very strong influence over an audience incabable of discerning the difference.

As befits his entertainer status, he saw no need to prepare in any way for his interview with the journalists Goodman and Gonzalez. While it’s true that he once or twice acknowledged that he “knew they were going to ask him” something or other, he did so in an I-knew-you-pinkos-couldn’t-resist-that-topic kind of way rather than an I-am-prepared-to-debate-that-issue-on-its-merits kind of way. Had he seen or heard the show before, this thing called Democracy Now!? Was he not aware that this was not a standard American news show where two parties with opposing viewpoints appear, shout at each other, cite no verifiable information and walk away with their opinions unchanged in any way, having imparted no knowledge to its viewers? Was he not aware that Democracy Now! takes sides—but based on verifiable or corroborated evidence?

Facts are What You Make Them

Lou Dobbs, again and again, defended his mis-statements with either the dissemblence that “[his] viewers are smart” or that he and his staff “didn’t know [insert embarrassing fact here] at the time”. He claims steadfastly that he has no anti-immigrant stance, but that any impression one might get to that effect from his “body of work” is purely coincidental. When asked whether the Minutemen—an anti-immigrant vigilante group that regularly performs armed patrols along the southern US border—were a group worth supporting and hosting on his show, he answered that they have never been convicted of any “acts of violence”. While this may very well be true, it deftly (or ham-handedly, depending on your subtlety threshold) avoids the point that even associating with what can only be termed a bunch of racist whackos paints one with at least some color from the same brush.

But returning to the justifications he mentioned above: as an excuse for many of what can only generously be called slip-ups, he claimed that his brilliant viewers were easily capable of determining what was simply being exaggerated for comic effect and what was actually verifiable fact[1]. It would be superfluous and an insult to both Dobbs’s craft and his viewers’ intelligence to indicate which was which. However, unlike the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Dobbs makes journalistic claims for the intent of his show: people are daily misled into believing that what he says is verifiable fact. This is not to say that he must ensure that nothing he says can be refuted at some point in the future, but simply that it can’t be refuted with a 4-second search on the Google. Dobbs is being disengenuous when he suggests that even a strong minority of his audience filters his vitriole and diatribe from the sparse few factual nuggets he sees fit to strew among the long minutes of his broadcast.

To the charge that he completely misrepresented the tuberculosis and leprosy figures (by several orders of magnitude), he continues to insist that “government doctors” thought it “likely” that the increased incidence of such diseases was due to illegal immigrants. No source, no report; just his gut feeling supported by “doctors” at some official agency or other. It couldn’t possibly be something else, like, say, that Bush’s gutting of the domestic budgets for everything else has caused checking for communicable diseases in legal immigrants to drop sharply. That hypothesis is just as unsupported by a report, but it’s “likely”, no?. Or what about all of the Americans traveling all over the world? Americans are among the most well-traveled of all. It’s pretty “likely” that, when some Americans travel to places where a single US dollar buys a whole porno film’s worth of earthly pleasures that those Americans may be just a bit lax in turning up the lights to see who’s got which rash. Cheap is cheap. Again, no report, no facts; but isn’t it just a little bit likely? Once you start along that road, you can see why Lou does it everyday: pretending to be a journalist is fun!

The other issue which Dobbs felt was unfairly represented was a citation on his show that 33% of the prison population was illegal aliens. The bibliography at the end of that show—which scrolls very quickly but is easily available to a DVR-enabled viewership—cited that reference as having been pulled out of his ass. In fact, the number of unregistered aliens in federal prison is closer to 26%. The number of unregistered aliens in all US prisons is closer to 6%. Dobbs felt the distinction was a nuance that his viewers would easily pick up on and didn’t see the need to retract or clarify the statement officially. According to him, however, it would be grossly unfair to construe from his consistent mis-statement of fact against unregistered aliens that he is against immigration.[2]

Though neither Goodman nor Gonzalez insinuated anything of the sort (their mention of the issue was merely to refute the figure of 33%) Dobbs accused them of suggesting that “they probably wanted to open up the floodgates of immigration because then the prison population would drop”. Again, Dobbs lashes out with what he probably considers a pretty smart f%*&ing remark, but it’s pure entertainment with no journalistic value whatsoever. He employed the strawman argument—a favorite of idealogues—by trying to put words in the mouths of opponents. In contrast and to Dobbs’s exasperation, Gonzalez and Goodman were careful to use only his own words against him in the form of citations from his show. Toward the end, he unraveled a bit and accused Mexico of single-handedly being responsible for the methamphetamine problem—neatly ignoring the United States’s criminally misdirected drug policies of the last 30 years or so.

Which brings us to the main point: Lou Dobbs is not a journalist. Neither is he a worthwhile academic or purveyor of public information. He doesn’t even understand the ground rules. Gonzalez confronted him with similar cases in history where immigrants—Chinese, Irish, Italians and more—were each in their time unjustly accused of spreading a disproportionate amount of crime or disease. In all of those cases, it was later discovered that the the accusations were completely baseless and were made up by elements of American society leery of losing any status or privilege to the perceived intruders. About a third of the way through this presentation[3], Dobbs grew bored and could not for the life of him determine what purpose this seemingly endless train of facts could possibly serve. Gonzalez had to remind him that they didn’t just encapsulate the news in “sound bites” on Democracy Now!, but let it roam unfettered in all of its factual glory. After having restrained himself to only two or three further rude interruptions, Dobbs responded that while all that talk about history may very well hold (he clearly had no idea of the history of immigration), this situation here and now was “different” and it was true this time. In other words, historical context is for chumps who want to be overrun by mindless hordes of disease-ridden, criminally-insane, Latino baby-factories.

Dobbs is, at best, an extremely well-funded video blogger with just as much oversight and just as much responsibility to the truth. That he understands this is clearly evidenced by the other justification he so frequently pulled forth in a feeble attempt to shield himself from the onslaught of incisive questions brought by people who don’t just automatically believe things because they hear them. When Amy Goodman brought up a few of his guests, he dismissed her with the claim that she’d taken a skewed sampling[4]. He responded by claiming that either the questionable guest hadn’t been on the show[5] or that he “didn’t know at the time” that the guest was a violent racist or some other kind of nutjob.

Ah, the incompetence defense. So nice to see you again. Had a nice rest since the Gonzalez and Mukasey hearings?

There was a time when people were horrified—horrified—of being thought incompetent. They would lie, cheat, murder, steal to avoid it. These days, people like Dobbs wear their incompetence like a medal of honor.[6] Now, some have discovered that no one really cares whether you’re incompetent as long as you never, ever, ever, ever admit you were mistaken. About anything. If you can pull it off, people will think you headstrong and resolute. They’ll think that you occasionally make mistakes, but you’re to be respected for sticking to your opinion. This is the true Bush legacy: who know’s how long we’ll be saddled with this idiocy. It’s clear from watching a professional purveyor of the philosophy like Dobbs that, once you’ve gotten a taste for it, there’s no going back.

No, for Dobbs it’s A-Ok to air interviews with a litany of anti-immigrants because that doesn’t affect his own pro-immigrant standing at all. Because, you see, those people’s views or associations were only made clear to him after he gave them ample airtime. Always after. Which leaves us with one of two conculsions: Lou Dobbs (and his entire staff) are wildly incompetent on a level seen only by the likes of Alberto Gonzalez … or Lou Dobbs is not only anti-immigrant; he’s a lying sack of shit.