Journalist Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post admits that his newspaper, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal (which has a conservative editorial page but advocates open borders) missed an important part of the immigration story because of “selective journalism.”
In What You Don’t Know About the Immigration Bill, he intones about journalism’s job to “inform the public” on what politicians are up to and confesses that he and his colleagues dropped the ball when reporting about the Senate’s version of the immigration bill.
The bill would virtually double immigration from the present 20 million a year over the next two decades to 40 million. [Note: Crazy slip of the pen. Can you imagine 40 million immigrants of any kind a year?] Citing a Pew poll that showed a majority of respondents favored a decrease in immigration, Samuelson believes that provision of the bill may have been defeated or at least debated on the floor if journalists had reported the large projection.
Amnesty was the focus of coverage, so the Post tended to frame stories around it, says Samuelson. Liberal journalists also missed how the Senate bill would impact the federal budget. Samuelson also cites a report by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, who focused on the fiscal effects of immigration and found that the Senate’s version of the immigration bill would double legal immigration over the next two decades. Conservative writers and bloggers cited the report as soon as it was released. Rector said that mainstream media didn’t write about his findings because of liberal bias. Samuelson says Rector “has a point.”
He admits that liberals like himself (he doesn’t say “I,” but I think we can infer what he means) consider people who’re concerned about the social effects of immigration “small-minded, stupid or bigoted,” but recognizes the error of that sort of thinking. “The result is selective journalism that reflects poorly on our craft and detracts from democratic dialogue,” Samuelson writes.
Conservatives have been saying that for years, Mr. Samuelson. But this conservative appreciates your honesty.
Just don’t let it happen again. 
Addendum: Samuelson’s column was published yesterday, but I thought I had a blogospheric jump on it this morning. Power Line and blogged about it yesterday. I’d forgotten how fast things move out here.
Other bloggers: John Hawkins blogs about 22 problems with the Senate’s immigration bill. Jim Miller charts historical data on immigration.
