Dropping Lou Dobbs: Unrepentant wingnuttery means CNN needs to choose between its credibility and its pride
By David Neiwert Wednesday Sep 23, 2009 5:00am
Lou Dobbs has always been unrepentant in the face of proof of his many journalistic misdeeds. So it is not surprising that, in the face of a concerted campaign to have CNN remove him as one of its major news anchors, Dobbs defiantly embraces conspiracy theorists who argue, among other things, that President Obama is planning to round up conservatives and incarcerate them in concentration camps, and who feature pro-secession articles on their websites.
Dobbs's irresponsible brand of journalism besmirches the credibility of an organization like CNN. Which means that it needs to choose between preserving its fast-eroding integrity, or sacrificing it on the altar of Dobbs' ego.
America's Voice is stepping up its campaign to have Dobbs removed this week with a series of ads and other measures intended to increase the public pressure on CNN's executives to act.
Dobb's mainstreaming of extremist beliefs and provably false "facts" simply cannot go on if CNN wants to be considered a responsible mainstream news organization:
White nationalist conspiracy theories flow seamlessly from vigilantes and extremist web sites to Dobbs and back again. Watch just a couple of episodes and you'll see how he throws around the term "criminal illegal aliens" with the spite and frequency of a mid-century Southern politician using the N-word. In Dobbs’ world, immigrants are disease ridden criminals who kill cops and are plotting for revolution. Bogus claims that immigrants are bringing a new wave of leprosy to America might be taken with a grain of salt on Fox - but on CNN, it’s news.
Perhaps to quell the criticism, CNN is airing a new mini-series in October called, "Latino in America." The network is in heavy promotion mode, sending the show's host, Soledad O'Brien, around the country to drum up interest.
Yeah, well, nice PR segments never quite wash the bad taste out of your mouth after having to swallow Dobbs' nightly broadcasts of immigrant-bashing.
The movement to challenge CNN to drop Lou Dobbs Tonight is growing. Dozens of local and national advocacy organizations are standing together to take the fight to CNN. Media Matters with DropDobbs.org, Presente.org and dozens of Latino groups with BastaDobbs.org, and Democracia Ahora with TellCNNEnoughisEnough, have all launched excellent campaigns against Dobbs. And groups like the National Council of La Raza have chronicled Dobbs’ extremism through websites like WeCanStopTheHate.org.
Our new campaign to get Dobbs off the air will hit CNN both on the air and online. In addition to the TV ad, we’re running online ads and targeted ads on Face Book. You probably won’t see them unless you work for CNN or Turner – we’re asking Anderson Cooper, Soledad O’Brien, Wolf Blitzer and others how they feel about promoting and enabling Dobbs and his unrelenting campaign of immigrant bashing.
The real question is, what else does Dobbs have to do to get fired? He called Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst a "public service," perpetuated the birther conspiracy, has congratulated the Minutemen, and just last week was honored by the anti-immigrant group FAIR - designated a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
It's time that CNN executives and the other "talent" at CNN deport Dobbs to Fox or talk radio where he belongs. He doesn't deserve the CNN seal of approval. Until CNN deals with its Lou Dobbs problem, any attempt to reach out to Latino audiences will be pure hypocrisy.
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... their wallet.
For many years the Johnson family had a broadcast stranglehold on Austin, Texas. There was no other TV station licensed for the city until the late 1960's, and the two competing network affiliates that eventually got licenses were UHF. The Johnson station, KTBC was the CBS affiliate.
Flash forward to the FOX era. FOX locally was also a UHF broadcaster.
When FOX won the right to broadcast NFC football away from CBS, that took the Dallas Cowboys off KTBC. They dropped CBS and picked up FOX just for the local NFL football following.
Credibility will loss every single time..
Just look at the action and policies from the democrats..
Money talks and Americans citizens have to walk...
did America get to this point and do we need to continue with this sordid hatred is what Obama needs to consider, after he cleans out Bush's Wall Street rats.
We must all do our part. Have you considered the term "Bush's Wall Street rodentia" as your contribution ot our less sordid, hateful America?
When producing "Latino in America" why don't they use a Latino host? Why Soledad O'Brien? Don't they have ANY Latinos over at CNN? What about that guy who punked the Tea Partiers? I can't remember his name, but he was Latino.
Ummm... why does the host need to be Latino?
For the record, her full name is María de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien and her parents are Cuban immigrants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soledad_O%27Brien
I enjoy her "Being an IRA Terrorist in Exile in America" series. "An ethnic triumph."
Mother from Cuba, father from Australia.
"O'Brien's parents, both immigrants, met at Johns Hopkins University..."
Peggy Noonan who rescued her off the coast of Florida where she was taken by freedom fighting dolphins. Either that or her mom was a southpaw pitcher who defected from the Cuban fastpitch softball team at the LA Olympics.
thinking of Rick Sanchez:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWfl1NIsy14&fe...
Si. "Soledad" means "Father of the Sun" in Spanish.
Father of the Sun, is that like god or something?
having illegals do your housework.
.
Kinda sounds like a single dad to me.
Or lonely Dad, which the Republicans seem to have a lot of.. (solo=lonely in Spanish)
Edito: Los siento, es solomente in espanol. solo es Italiano.
El monitoro del idioma
Hey site monitor, what was the name of that snappy Herb Alpert tune in Spanish?
BTW, shouldn't it be "Lo siento" aunque you are solamente uno?
Tijuana Brass?
Si. Los=lo.
Otra vez. Lo siento.
¿Mi espanol is muy bien, no?
Yup! And your upside-downishness of the question mark is pretty cool too.
:p***
Update: Wow, I just experienced the degree to which they are programming just for you, Curt. Amazing.
My moniker takes a lot of practice.
You'll get it eventually.
..que lastima.
Lo siento, pero yo no podría hacer los al revés símbolos.
El Solo Toro (The Lonely Bull?) Was it anglicized? Should it have been El Toro Solomente?
On Edit: I see I'm late to the party, with my west coast time zone.
You should see the sun's Mom. She's pretty hot!
You get the "so bad it's good" award for that one. :)
award for inventing word definitions, Spanish.
Sol Edad. Sun Age.
Of course that is my own invention.
Like the cleanser, Spic and Span-ish?
.
If you are going to comment in anything but English you must bring enough translations to share with everyone.
Don't go there. Kinda like lNm's warning the other day about them apples.
I don't even allow myself to think about the "A" word. It's evil and I want no part of it. I even dislike words that have that letter in them.
Thx POP! I feel like I won an emmy.
Well, you're one up on Colbert and equal to Jon Stewart.
The drinks are on you tonight.
Mexican coffees and Margaritas all around, If I'm not mistaken, we are close to the real independence day for Mexico anyway.
.
The google says Sept 15
If that's the case we have to drink fast to catch up.
Thanks POP. I was typing a surrender response but I should have known ricky doesn't know much about Mexican culture
I am a Texan.
El Diez y Seis de Septiembere. Dia del grito de Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costillas en Guanajuato.
Well, all I know about Mexican culture I learned at a Cinco de Mayo party, and the party wasn't in Mexico.
In Texas we must study Mexican history.
Here is the State Board of Education's
approved Mexican Hisotry in Texas film, which may have been produced by Lou Dobbs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqKE-veVeZk
Hisotry? Is that Spanish for history?
and you may find a few letters on the floor that haven't been chewed up or slobbered on by Martooney, your minature Irish lush hound.
Update: Be sure and watch the movie.
Martini had his teeth cleaned yesterday and now they are so white that they shine in the dark. He is abstaining from chewing anything that might have ink on it.
And I'll warp my mind any way I please, thank you very much.
In the last Mediabistro numbers, Dobbs was dead last, getting beat out by Headline News. He can go to Fox like Beck did and get rich, preaching to their choir.
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/t...
Lou Dobbs isn't just a rabid bigot, he's incredibly boring, fake, and boorish. It's time for CNN to send this neanderthal out behind the shed, to you know.
Not so much these days.
Dobbs is geneitcally Faux - he needs to go there.
CNN has lost any credibility they ever had (IMO)
...........for propaganda! How would we know what 'our' gov. was doing without it. Seig Heil propaganda with putzs like this, the obviousness of the PROPAGANDA is odious, obnoxious, tiresome, unrelenting, right out of Goebels playbook. FASCIST USofBLOODYISRAEL, shalom is supposed to mean 'Peace' ..........guess now it means 'Peace only if you bendknee to BLOODYISRAEL.
Why not start a campaign urging broadcasters to drop Fox News from their packages?
Not to mention target the radio syndicates that air Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage ans so on, so the idiot has nowhere to go?
They need at least one oxymoron.
"Fox News" is an oxymoron.
(One part oxy to nine parts moron)
lol
So the idiots have nowhere to go but back to their al-qaeda cave?
Anyone who wants the President of the USA to fail is a traitor, plain and simple.
I could not agree with you more. If anyone had come out in public and said they hoped bush failed, they would be on some island now starving to death. They would have been Dixie chicked to death.
CNN cares about credibility and not $$$.
"Money talks, credibility doesn't even whisper"
Did something happen to Lou? I haven't watched him in a long time but back when I did watch him once in a while, he wasn't all crazy and everything. Now from what I read here he sounds like he's lost his mind. Is he for real or is he playing a beck like part for right wing ratings? Either way, he needs to be at Fox now and stop making CNN look even worse than they have to.
It is a sad situation. These haters have nothing original to add to the conversation so they spew as much hate (honey) as they can and that attracts the haters (bees) so their ratings grow. Beck's ratings are better than Dobbs because Beck is on the "Hate Channel" and that it is the place the haters gravitate to (also Beck is a little more insane that Dobbs). CNN is not known for their hate so Dobbs has to work hard to grab the crumbs from Fox.
I used to like Lou when he was the crusader for workers rights and took it the corporate power brokers. But then he turned into Lou the hater. Now he just sounds like Glen Beck, and we don't need one of those let alone too.
After years of bashing the Bush Admin, it seems like Dobbs has taken on a new anti-Obama tone in order to improve his street cred or re-prove himself a Republican.
I would bet everything I own that if this happened, Faux News would pick him up and he'd get much MUCH crazier....
They probably would not have to send Soledad O'Brien out on a PR tour if Dobbs had not ruined CNN's credibility.
CNN needs to decide whether it really wants to be a news organization or a joke? I'm all for information that challenges my beliefs as long as it's unbiased, researched and supported by fact. Lou strikes me as maybe having a little Sundowner's action and it's being captured and distributed as news.
When is Lou on? Is he by any chance up against Beck or BillO?
Dobbs will be hard to get rid of even if sponsors drop him and ratings drop. He has been a very senior executive at CNN for a very long time. He was there from the beginning and was a close personal friend with Ted Turner. Dobbs likely still has a fair amount of corporate power at CNN. Although he is a bit of a joke now, he did have some credibility and awards as a journalist in the past.
The best bet to get rid or Dobbs is if there are other senior executives at CNN who politically have always wanted to get rid of Dobbs, but could not because he was too powerful. They may use the protest against Dobbs to finally get rid of him.
lou muddobber to cnn
Why can't I quit you?
http://images.absoluteastronomy.com/images/en...
I'm sick of Joe Wilson. At this point, I want illegal immigrants covered out of spite.
to protect one's toes...
It's just a different version of FOX...a propaganda outlet.
Reposted here due to it's historical and on thread significance in any discussion of Lou Dobbs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqKE-veVeZk
Bye bye Lou!! Nobody needs to hear the what you have to say... just STFU and go away quietly... atta boy!
you know you are watching something akin to Glenn Beck wingnuttery. Blitzer and John King are right wing aggenda driven, they are just more coy.
but what CNN has already lost their credibility.
On CNN International. That is, if they ever had him. They _do_ show the Daily Show.. which often _trashes_ Dobbs!
Just watch The Daily Show and BOYCOTT CNN, since it is quickly turning into the next Faux Noise Wing-NutO lies and entertainment.
Hey CNN:
Just put on- The Emergency Broadcasting Test. More people will listen.
with your enormous head and your big square shit eating teeth.
You could pull those teeth and donate them to an impoverished country to help build shelters.They could burn your inflated ego for heating purposes for years,smoldering like a pile of old radial tires.
Prolly stink just as bad too.
don't come back to Seattle if they do finally wise up and kick your lying arse to the curb. We're fed up with high profile conservative assholes who move here, then whine that they are ostracised.
ID, AZ and possibly MO, MS, good choices for the likes of you.
Let's not forget the contradiction that's going on here.
The Democrats, despite being the party that is supposed to represent labor, favors immigration to swell the party's voting numbers.
The Republicans, despite being the party that is supposed to favor cheap labor for big business, is against immigration because of the racist tendencies of their voting base.
So, while I support kicking Dobbs off the airways, I support it somewhat reluctantly, knowing that it is against my interests as an American worker. The Democratic party is my party and I am glad that they are getting more voters, but at the same time if the Democratic party is not going to take a stand to protect American jobs from illegal foreign workers, then what's the point?
Rather than take him off the air, why not pressure CNN to rein him in by vetting his copy and not allowing the lies on the air? Or refuting the lies (using Lou's time period). Pressuring CNN to remove him only makes him a martyr with the immigrant bashers.
Look this is Dollars and Cents and other than White Supremacy nothing else rules. you want them to dump dobbs start talking the Race Card to both CNN and its Sponsors use the Wacko Right guilt by association theory.
They opened the bag now keep it open they shoved it down our throats so now lets shove it up their arses.
Everyone knows if your republican you are a Racist Nazi Hate Monger.
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