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.
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Thanks for this article La Shawn. Too many people are drawn by “emotion” on this issue and less on the facts and the outcome for America as a whole. In their “zeal” to appear to be “the American version of the Good Samaritan (which does not resemble the parbale of the Bible at all)”, they fail to see the chaos that will ensue in the end (an in fact destroy those they claim to want to help and everyone else in the process).
But like you said, at least he is being honest.
Fie! on Samuelson. Good journalism is not a mystery game. It is guided by Kipling’s “Six Honest Serving Men.” Those serving men are: Who, What, Where, Why, When, and How. But Kipling calls them “honest” serving men, by which he means that they are sent to scour all sides and shades of the topic.
DC is the epicenter of nuanced opinion. It teems with think tanks and lobbyists. It is a maze of too much opinion and torrents of slanted “facts.”
A real journalist, on top of his game, knows this and has learned to separate the wheat from the chaff and present the anatomy of the issue in clear, unbiased reporting. Kipling’s six honest serving men are his compass for doing this.
But, much (shall I say most) of the news corps in DC are not writing news so much as presenting briefs for their own convictions.
In the immigration issue, Kipling would take his six serving men to the political parties, the liberals, the conservatives, the Anglos, the immigrants, the National Association of Manufacturers, the unions, the Chamber of Commerce, and on and on. Only then would he weave his discoveries into a report.
It is a very big job to report from DC. Most of the people doing it are not up to the challenge, so they drop the “honest” modifier and take the easy path to publication. In fairness, deadlines play a big role, but it is never too late to get the complete picture.
I commend Samuelson for writing the article. However, the only thing that will really count is contact with your Senator and House representative. Flood them with letters, e-mails, bricks, rallies, anything you can think of to get the point across that we, your citizens and constituents, will not vote for any candidate, republican or democrat, who supports the sham Senate bill. The House and Senate committees are getting ready to try to write a compromise bill and unless the bill gets out of committee, the legislation will die. Personally, I hope some bill does get out of committee which emphasizes enforcement and employer sanctions and a tamper proof identification card. If the bill dies in committee, nothing will be done to stop the approximately 100,000/yr illegal immigrants coming across the border.
Gee, you don’t think that journalists slant stories about any topic other than immigration though, do you?
(sarc/off)
Hmmmm.
Actually that “slip of the pen” might be the correct number.
Frankly I don’t buy the “12 million” as the correct number of illegal aliens in America today. I think it’s closer to 20 million. And there are more coming across the border every day because of the possibility of an amnesty. Considering that the senate plan has a 5-8 year delay before giving citizenship to the current crop of illegal aliens and that the number of illegals successfully entering America is pegged at 3 million a year now.
This could add 15-24 million more illegals to the system by the time the probationary period is up. And as the only documentation required is rather flimsy and largely self-generated, the opportunities for later illegals to give the appearance of conforming to the senate plan means that we could literally be creating 40 million or so citizens in a 1-2 year span.
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