Reflections on Lou Dobbs' Turbulent Departure
Lou Dobbs quickly and unexpectedly announced his resignation from CNN this week, terminating his reported multi-year contract with the cable network. I have been calling publicly for months for CNN to stop putting Dobbs on the air, so I think it worthwhile to reflect for a moment on why his resignation was the right decision.
Although some have decried CNN's censorship of a self-labeled opinionated voice, I reject that notion. First and foremost, I am a champion of the First Amendment. The Media Institute, a non-profit organization that includes CNN and many other major news outlets as supporters, recently honored me with their annual First Amendment award for my work in championing free speech.
I believe free speech includes the right to be heard, but not everyone has a right to his or her own television show. Lou Dobbs exploited his position as a news anchor with his own nightly show and used it as a platform to advance his xenophobic and anti-business agenda. Now that he has lost that platform, he can pitch an op-ed as readily as anyone else can - and indeed his opinions belong somewhere other than on a serious news network.
What I found most troubling about CNN's nightly airing of Dobbs' opinions and rants was the fact that CNN was carried on screens in our nation's airports. Why, I wondered, did airport managers force Americans, our overseas guests, and airline workers to watch the worst face of America?
Lou Dobbs was on at prime time for one hour every weekday on CNN, and CNN is on in 48 major airports in more than 2,000 passenger-waiting areas across America. CNN claims that more than 223 million people are exposed to its programming in American airports each year.
What did they see and hear? Dobbs railing against minorities and immigrants so much that outraged Hispanic groups formally challenged CNN. Dobbs seeking to block trade with other countries and insulting our best trading partners. Dobbs exaggerating the proportion of illegal immigrants in jails and giving air time to a white supremacist. Most significantly, what we got each day was not news, but Dobbs' opinions.
Dobbs was an opinionated bully and he used his one-hour daily forum to espouse his own brand of nastiness to those who do not look like him or have his American lineage.
Again, I believe passionately in the First Amendment. Dobbs has the right to his views, as repugnant as I find them, and CNN certainly had the right to air Dobbs. But what I objected to most was the quasi-government agencies - airports - making money by agreeing to expose those views to Americans and our international guests.
The American Association of Airport Executives ethical code is replete with bars on partisan activity and taking public policy prerogatives from the government entities that own the airports. I'm glad that Dobbs' departure from CNN means that those ethics no longer need to be translated to action. But there is still a lesson for the future in the fact that Dobbs was allowed in our airports at all.
CNN took the most trusted brand in objective news coverage and polluted it with the opinions of Lou Dobbs. No more could CNN claim to be the objective source of news it was when airports first started showing CNN in 1992.
Now that CNN has finally acted to get anti-immigrant, racist and protectionist xenophobe Lou Dobbs out of our airports and off its airwaves, this once well-regarded news outlet has an opportunity to reclaim its mantle.
Disclosure: Last year, I "debated" Lou Dobbs on his show.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
Follow Gary Shapiro on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GaryShapiro
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This is cute. Shapiro essentially states he is a champion of free speech as long as the speech is not heard by too many people. Shapiro goes on to state that Dobbs is xenophobic, anti-business, and anti-immigrant. Let me clarify. Dobbs opposes businesses who break the law, immigrants who break the law, and as for the xenophobia, that is pure fiction. Dobbs welcomes legal immigrants. I am pretty left wing, but I am frustrated by how misleading people on the left are concerning illegal immigration. For the record, anti-illegal immigration does not equal anti-immigration. Furthermore, anti-immigration does not equal anti-Mexican. I challenge anyone to create a logically sound argument which demonstrates that anti-illegal immigration necessitates xenophobia, anti-business sentiment, racism....
Good riddance to Dobbs. He wasn't being censored. Shapiro's absolutely right -- He's entitled to his views and he's entitled to express them up to a point, but CNN does not owe him a bully pulpit -- certainly not on a station that broadcasts in airports where visitors and yes, new legal immigrants from other countries, arrive. They guy's a palpable racist, and a lot of what he broadcast was hate speech. Incitement to violence was not OK, and he was near enough as makes no nevermind.
The circus about the hunter's stray bullet that struck his house a few weeks ago, and his attempt to blame that on MALDEF or La Raza or whomever, was the last straw. The guy's just a buffoon, at this point, and if he removes his asinine views to Fox that's just fine with me.
I've heard Lou Dobbs rip on G.W. plenty. Lou's departure is just another example of everything being backwords and upside down in this country. He used to name all the companies that moved overseas but he had to stop because their all gone now. Lou Dobbs for President.
See Gary Shapiro's Profile
Thanks for the comments, everyone. With regards to the First Amendment, we must remember that it does not protect people from being silenced by anyone other than the government.
I enjoyed Loud Dobbs's shows very much. I no longer watch CNN. Now, I turn to Fox.
As a legal immigrant, I had to prove that I was healthy... no HIV, no lung diseases, no mental diseases etc... also that I had an employer or sponsor ready to take financial responsibility for me, also that I had a clean record as regards to my social behavior (ie, no criminal convictions), also that I was not a communist, also that I was fluent in English, and... ultimately
What is wrong with that? If it is the standard, let's enforce it. How is it xenophobic to enforce fairness?
Let the hoteliers and farmers and other employers stand up and sponsor their foreign workers. Let them commit to pay social security and health care coverage. Let them provide English language lessons.
Rowena, I would gather from your statements that you immigrated quite a while ago, and beyond that I believe you are mis-remembering quite a number of things. And I expect that, being European, you had an easier run than most folks. I've recently sponsored a couple of my family members to come here as legal immigrants, and am pretty current on the details.
It is indeed reasonable for any country to want to know something about arriving immigrants. The question is how much, and at what cost. The basic application fee is now upward of $900. In my relatives' home country, the required medical exam by one of the 3 available certified civil surgeons in the country cost $400, the equivalent of a month's pay for a professional -- in absolute dollar terms, twice what it does in the US. That's a scam, one of many in the system. They had to send their original vaccination certificates to the US at the start of the process, then pay to be re-vaccinated a couple of years later because -- guess what -- they couldn't produce the certificates. My relatives had to get and pay for their security checks repeatedly, because USCIS took so long processing their papers that they kept expiring. We were fortunate; they never actually lost the whole file. They do this fairly often. We had an easy time.
Part 2.
Sponsors have to have specific immigration status and specific relationships to the immigrants, based on the immigrants' age and marital status. Some of the definitions are painfully narrow. Sponsors have to be able to support the immigrant at 125% of poverty level -- which is not so much, now, but if we're required to have health insurance and prohibited from gov't supported programs -- as we already are in Massachusetts -- the cost becomes staggering. In aid of determining our financial stability, the gov't has access to our bank accounts, our employers, our tax records, yadda yadda. I joke that CIS knows how many pairs of socks I own, and that's **not** reasonable. It's incredibly invasive.
You did **not** have to prove you were fluent in English to be accepted as an incoming immigrant. That's not a requirement and it never has been. Most people have to take the citizenship test in English. That comes a minimum of 3-5 years later.
The requirements for immigration have become unreasonably steep, particularly since 1985. Basically what they say is that if you have any economic incentive for migrating, you're unwelcome. Only the rich need apply. That's wrong.
Dobbs is an ass, and I say good riddance to him.
Lou Dobb spoke the TRUTH! He was the only news person at CNN to consistently give the whole story. A HUGE loss for CNN. God bless Lou Dobbs! God Bless America.
This article is absurd. Lou Dobbs called it as it was. He will be missed. Once again Shapiro misses the point. If CNN is not happy with Dobbs they could have terminated his contract. However, censurship is not an option. It appears that no one at this goofy blog can understand this simple fact. I think Dobbs was on the mark with most all of his points. Here's looking forward to his interview with O'Reilly on the Factor on Monday night. I suspect CNN will once again (as has been the case for quite sometime now) be dumped on in it's ratings.
good riddance dobbs
YES WE DID!!!!
Lou Dobbs is the only show I watch in CNN, he is not afraid to question REAL issues in this country most especially illegal immigration. I worked very very very hard to be legally here, I don't get why so many ignorant people prefer to prioritize people who knowingly BROKE the U.S. law by entering the country without proper documentation and contributing to the U.S. Government by paying taxes. As usual people who makes sense like Lou Dobbs are shoved away, goodluck to CNN in retaining their already poor ratings, now it makes it fair for MSNBC to compete side by side with CNN for the worst cable news ratings ever!
I've watched the Lou Dobbs show since 2000. I used to believe that Lou Dobbs was looking out for me but I have to tell you I was wrong. The day a black man, I'm white by the way, was elected president I saw a change in Lou Dobbs that shocked me. In 8 years of George Bush lying to America, torturing people, spying on Americans, invading countries without reason, and a laundry list of other bad behavior, I never saw such anger from Lou Dobbs as I did when he spoke about Barack Obama. The veins in his head would be popping out and his face would turn red.
Where was Mr. Independent's anger when people were being tortured? Where was Lou Dobb's anger when the elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen? Where was Lou's anger when we were all losing our jobs and our homes? Lou Dobbs has defended every Republican position since the day Barack Obama took office.
I have been writing Lou letting him know that he cannot possibly be 'looking out for me' as he claims on his show. In fact he's been looking out for his republican friends. I have to wonder if Lou Dobbs was ever in fact an independent or a republican plant. He filled his show with republican conservative pundits with a few progressives that he would belittle.
I cannot tell you how happy I am with CNN's decision to remove his opinions from a "News" network.
Clearly the answer is to stop watching CNN, an incompetent, loser news service that throws its best old-timer under the bus.
I must admit that the only one program I watched on CNN was just the Lou Dobbs show. He was the ONLY one bright beacon of light in twisted, skewed, biased and very much politically correct CNN polluting airwaves with unworthy stream of nothingness. Lou has his honest opinion and high moral principles that distinguished him as the only one voice of truth from all other christiane amanpours of CNN. Best of luck Lou.
I think we should always be skeptical about statements that contain "I believe in the First Amendment, but..." It's like saying, "I believe in equal rights, but...." This is sheer hypocrisy, especially when it's followed by explicit contempt and ridicule of the views advocated by the subject in question. What this guy is really saying is that freedom of speech is fine, along as it doesn't offend him or his preferred constituencies. The way to handle Dobbs or anyone else was by talking back, and not by a campaign to silence him. People who are afraid of contrary opinions are usually concerned that they just might be right.
As despicable as I find Dobbs' rants to be they are much less disturbing and embarrassing than the "I believe in the First Amendment but..." view espoused by the Gary Shapiro's of this country.
I think you are in denial about your belief and the interpretation of the 1st amendment. You disagree with Lou Dobbs and his beliefs; but this is what he believes and should be allowed to express it. He should not be censored by you.
You are trying to silence him because you believe that he is wrong. Even if you do not have agree with him that does not give you the right to try and silence him. What you are doing is very scary to me. What if someone tried to stop you from voicing your opinion? Should we listen to just your opinion? Let the world see all sides so we can form our own opinion.
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