Reading this morning's WSJ, I was reminded of the Elder's tales of when he would end up literally throwing the morning Strib across the breakfast table as he encountered leftist bias that has made the paper infamous.
I usually don't see that in the WSJ, which is one of the reasons I subscribe. But today's paper featured a doozie worthy of our local rag or even the AP. It's a story about various activist groups that have come together to do something about illegal immigration since the government doesn't seem to care. Notice how I said ILLEGAL immigration? Just checking.
Right off the bat, the writer cannot help herself from trying to downplay the popularity of the first group described:
Armed with a computer and less than $100, Joseph Turner two years ago formed a group called "Save Our State." His goal: save California from turning into a "Third World cesspool" of illegal immigrants, he says. The group doesn't have a formal membership,and Mr. Turner counts barely 2,000 people on his email list and message board.
Why "barely"? Why not "more than"? And why does formal membership mean anything? The clear message being conveyed by the language is that this is a meaningless little group of wackos who don't mean anything.
But who is the leader of the group?
"My idea of activism is aggressive, street-level and in-your-face activism," says Mr. Turner, who strikes a clean-cut look with slicked-back black hair and icy blue eyes. He adds: "I don't believe in turning the other cheek."
The icy blue eyes of a cold, hard, unfeeling racist perhaps?
The next little trick the writer employs is to portray the group as being against immigrants in general as opposed to ILLEGAL immigration--which is the entire reason for the organization.
The Center for New Community, a Chicago organization (ed: just an "organization" how about a liberal organization?) that tracks immigration issues, says there are 211 so-called nativist groups -- groups that advocate protecting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants -- across the U.S., up from 37 two years ago. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups, also says nativist groups are on the rise and that several are hate groups, including Mr. Turner's Save Our State. The law center defines a hate group as one that singles out and promotes hatred of another group, based on ethnicity, language, religion, sexual inclination or immigration status. Mr. Turner denies he runs a hate group.
So now she has successfully labeled an anti-illegal immigration group as a "Nativist" group. From there, she hits a few left-wing activists in the golden rolodex and they make a case that they are a "hate group". THEN, instead of letting the leader of the group make a decent rebuttal of the false and inflammatory charges, she simply writes "Mr. Turner denies.."
Is there any doubt about how she is manipulating the reader and how she wants the reader to feel?
She goes on with the template:
Several budding groups receive funding from older, well-endowed national organizations, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has been battling immigration for decades.
Are they battling immigration or illegal immigration? The distinction does not seem important to our scribe.
Anti-immigrant sentiment has swept the U.S. before, targeting Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese and Japanese newcomers
Good Lord. "Anti-immigrant sentiment"? Who is anti-immigrant? Again, I love how she turns anti ILLEGAL immigration into anti IMMIGRATION. Also note the heavy-handed and loaded use of the word "Targeted" as one might do with say a gun.
She goes on:
William Gheen, a former conservative campaign strategist and legislative assistant, formed the Americans for Legal Immigration-PAC, or ALIPAC, on Sept. 11, 2004, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks...
So this guy gets labeled as a conservative, which is a way of saying "Don't listen to this guy, he's one of those kind of people" and the Southern Poverty Law Center gets no label whatsoever?
The technique of presenting very inflammatory, specific charges and then not letting the attacked have a say (as seen in the earlier example) is repeated again here:
Mr. Luebke also says Mr. Gheen preyed on the discomfort felt by many white North Carolinians over the increased visibility of Latinos -- the spread of Mexican restaurants and stores, Spanish-language signs and Spanish-language movies at video stores. With manufacturing jobs also moving overseas, "the brown immigrant was an easy scapegoat," says Mr. Luebke.
Mr. Gheen says his is a "moderate group" and denies trying to stir up racial animosities.
Why did moderate group need scare quotes?
Ahhhh...there's plenty more, but this is representative of the piece. The sheer audacity that the writer has to think they can pull this kind of crap off in the WSJ amazes me.
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