Dropping Dobbs: A Victory for Media Activism, and the Challenge Ahead

After years of criticism and months of campaigning by media activists, Lou Dobbs finally made his exit from CNN. On the November 11 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, the virulently anti-immigrant primetime host announced his abrupt departure from the network, well before his contract was up. Although CNN president Jonathan Klein described the split as “extremely amicable,” it capped months of intense pressure on the network to oust Dobbs; word later leaked out that he was paid an $8 million severance to leave early. Two coalitions had launched efforts to get the host removed because of his xenophobic rhetoric: Basta Dobbs, which targeted CNN, and Drop Dobbs, which aimed at advertisers. Celebrating Dobbs’s departure, Roberto Lovato of Basta Dobbs declared: “We are thrilled that Dobbs no longer has this legitimate platform from which to incite fear and hate.”¹

Although the full-scale campaigns started only in recent months, Dobbs’s crusade against immigrants began years ago. As media critic Peter Hart reported in 2004, Dobbs began devoting frequent airtime in late 2003 to the supposed menace of “illegal aliens who not only threaten our economy and security, but also our health and well-being.” He skewed statistics, used dubious data, and blurred the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. His viewers were regularly warned that immigrants were “flooding across our borders, in some cases carrying dangerous diseases,” getting free medical care and education, and costing the economy tens of billions of dollars.²

When immigration reform came on the congressional agenda in 2006, Dobbs’s ratings shot up dramatically, and the next year CNN promoted him from the 6 p.m. to the 7 p.m. time slot. His show’s xenophobic hysteria continued virtually every evening, warning of Mexican immigrants who see themselves as an “army of invaders” intent upon reannexing parts of the southwestern United States to Mexico, and of immigrant rights protesters who “may wear white to symbolize peace, but they smell blood now that Congress has failed to pass border security or immigration reform legislation.”³

Dobbs remained stridently unapologetic. As he told CNN’s Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz in April 2006: “I’m not interested—are you interested in six or seven views, or are you interested in the truth? Because that’s what I’m interested in; that’s what my viewers are interested in.”⁴

Dobbs also gave a prominent platform to anti-immigrant leaders and racists. According to a search of the Nexis news media database, the Federation for American Immigration Reform was either cited or had its representatives appear on Dobbs’s show more than 80 times, going back to 1993; the Center for Immigration Studies, more than 200 times. Both groups were started with the help of John Tanton, an anti-immigrant funder with ties to the white supremacist movement.⁵

The Minuteman Project, a vigilante border patrol group, came in for praise many times on the show. Dobbs called it “a terrific group of concerned, caring Americans,” never mentioning the well-documented racism among members and the movement. Co-founder Chris Simcox, who appeared several times on the show, once said: “I feel that the people that are coming across, invading this country, I think that they should be treated as enemies of the state. We need to be putting them in work camps. Anyone could walk through these borders of this country bringing bombs, chemicals, weapons of mass destruction. I think they should be shot on sight, personally.”⁶

When several hundred people protested Simcox’s May 19, 2008, speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Dobbs declared on his show two nights later, “I mean, goodness, those protesters outside the lecture hall called Simcox a racist because of his leadership of the Minutemen at one time and for advocating border security.”⁷

It’s not as though Dobbs is unaware of these connections. When Janet Murguía of the National Council of La Raza confronted him on his September 4, 2008, show about Simcox, Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist, and other such guests, Dobbs responded, “I guess what I’m saying is, la-di-da, it’s not acceptable to you. What gives you such special prerogative here?”

Notorious anti-immigrant sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, also found a welcoming home on Dobbs’s show. Arpaio, whose human rights abuses have been documented going back to 1996, and who has been accused of racial profiling and unconstitutional raids on communities, appeared on Dobbs’s show at least 10 times since 2007, and Dobbs regularly defended him from critics. When the Department of Justice opened an investigation on Arpaio’s tactics in March, Dobbs denounced it on April 2 as “almost Stalinist in the way which these liberal Democrats are trying to use the federal government to overwhelm a sheriff,” calling him a “champion in the fight against illegal aliens.”⁸

Dobbs was not simply shouting into a hole. While it’s impossible to directly link Dobbs’s influence to increases in xenophobia and reported hate crimes, he was able to make things happen with his words, perhaps most strikingly in the case of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. In 2006, Dobbs took up the case of the two agents, who had been convicted of firing on an unarmed suspected drug smuggler fleeing toward the border, and then covering it up. The man, a Mexican national named Osvaldo Aldrete-Dávila, was hit once in the hail of 15 bullets but escaped.

The agents were convicted by a jury for several counts of assault and sentenced to 11 and 12 years of prison, respectively. But Dobbs teamed up with Swift Boat Veteran mastermind Jerome Corsi to push Ramos and Compean’s version of the story, in which they heroically defended the border against an armed illegal alien. Although their story had been discredited in court, it became conventional wisdom thanks to Dobbs’s efforts, and his campaign culminated in George W. Bush commuting their sentence on his way out of office.⁹

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All of this served Dobbs and CNN well for years, and as long as Dobbs was pulling in viewers, CNN seemed happy to tolerate his misleading and malignant reporting. But under the new Obama administration, Dobbs’s numbers tanked; with immigration a low priority for the Obama administration, Dobbs flailed about for another hook, jumping on the so-called Birther bandwagon—entertaining the theory that Obama was not born in the United States and is therefore a covert “illegal alien” and unfit to serve as president.

CNN’s Klein took baby steps in July to rein in his host, sending Dobbs’s staff a report from CNN researchers about the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate and declaring: “It seems this story is dead—because anyone who still is not convinced doesn’t really have a legitimate beef.”¹⁰

But Dobbs continued to flog the story, brazenly flouting the marching orders, and Klein backpedaled, telling the Los Angeles Times on July 25 that he trusted Dobbs: “When I use the word ‘seems,’ that’s an open invitation to disagree. Other people may have a different point of view about that, and they’re welcome to offer it, because I don’t think as management you ever want to be closed down to discussions about editorial issues.”¹¹

And Dobbs wasn’t just a ratings problem. As former CNN correspondent Brooks Jackson told the Associated Press: “He’s embarrassed himself and he’s embarrassed CNN. And that’s not a good thing for any network that wants to be seen as a reputable, nonpartisan news organization.”¹² CNN’s reputation aside, Dobbs’s show continued to lose viewers; in October, his last month on the air, Lou Dobbs Tonight finished dead last in the all-important 25- to 54-year-old demographic, behind even CNN’s lower-profile sister network, CNN Headline News.¹³

Although Dobbs’s departure from CNN is certainly a victory for immigrant rights advocates, dumping a ratings disaster that scares away advertisers and undermines a network’s reputation isn’t exactly a brave move. Protecting Dobbs for all these years was a business decision, and giving him the boot was likewise a business decision. Will this mark a shift in CNN’s journalistic standards? Most likely not: CNN’s immigration problem runs deeper than Dobbs.¹⁴ When immigration legislation was being hotly debated in Washington and the media, Dobbs wasn’t the only CNN pundit spewing anti-immigrant rhetoric. Resident cranky commentator Jack Cafferty went on several tirades against peaceful immigrant rights marches, which he labeled “mobs of illegal aliens”:

March through our streets and demand your rights. Excuse me? You have no rights here, and that includes the right to tie up our towns and cities and block our streets. At some point this could all turn very violent as Americans become fed up with the failure of their government to address the most pressing domestic issue of our time.¹⁵

And don’t forget that the TV career of Fox’s latest star, Glenn Beck, was launched by none other than CNN. More recently, the network’s immigration coverage has tilted somewhat more toward the “comfort the afflicted” end of the spectrum, featuring sympathetic coverage of farmworkers and the proposed DREAM Act, which would allow some undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children to go to college or serve in the military to gain permanent residency. The network also aired a special report on October 21 and 22 called Latino in America, which featured humanizing portraits of immigrants—and no mention of Dobbs. CNN may have been trying to balance out Dobbs, but now that he is off the roster, will the network continue to try to present immigrants in a fair light? A survey of recent shows reveals that many CNN hosts and correspondents still use the terms “illegal alien,” “illegal immigrant,” and even “illegals,” all of which dehumanize undocumented immigrants and imply that the people themselves are somehow illegal.

This probably isn’t the last we’ll hear from Dobbs, either. In his on-air farewell, Dobbs noted that important issues, among which he named immigration, are “now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion. I’ll be working diligently to change that as best I can.”

It wouldn’t be surprising to see him back on TV before long. The New York Times reported that Fox Business Network, which has recently been acquiring controversial personalities like Don Imus and John Stossel, was “keen on” Dobbs, and that the host met with Fox TV chair Roger Ailes in September.¹⁶ In any case, Dobbs’s voice will continue to be heard on his daily radio program, The Lou Dobbs Show, which began in March 2008.

Dobbs has also indicated that he’s interested in running for office, perhaps against the sole Latino in the Senate, New Jersey’s Robert Menendez. In an interview with Telemundo, Dobbs made a remarkable about-face, announcing his support for a path to legalization for undocumented workers. “Whatever you have thought of me in the past,” he said, “I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together.” Whether such breathtaking opportunism will advance his political career remains to be seen.¹⁷

Anti-immigrant rhetoric will be with us as long as there’s a market for it. In that sense, helping to oust Dobbs from CNN was a victory, but campaigners’ biggest success was in raising awareness about anti-immigrant hate speech and its connection to violence, and the role media play in propagating both. And with a big immigration legislation battle gearing up again, that’s the struggle that will continue, Dobbs or no Dobbs.

Julie Hollar is the managing editor of Extra!, published by the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (fair.org).

1. Michael Shain, “Source: CNN Wanted Dobbs Out,” New York Post, November 16, 2009; “BastaDobbs.com Announces Victory,” BastaDobbs.com.

2. Peter Hart, “Dobbs’ Choice,” Extra!, January/February 2004.

3. Felix Gillette, “Dobbs’ Ratings Dip Down,” New York Observer, June 9, 2009; Julie Hollar, “CNN’s Immigration Problem,” Extra!, May/June 2006.

4. Hollar, “CNN’s Immigration Problem.”

5. Southern Poverty Law Center, “The Puppeteer,” Intelligence Report no. 106 (summer 2002).

6. David Neiwert, “Minuteman Chris Simcox’s Past Will Haunt His Primary Bid Against McCain,” Crooks and Liars (blog), April 23, 2009.

7. David Neiwart, “The Simcox Makeover,” Orcinus (blog), May 1, 2006.

8. Isabel Macdonald, “Marketing the Media’s ‘Toughest Sheriff,’ ” Extra!, June 2009.

9. Alex Koppelman, “The Ballad of Ramos and Compean,” Salon, September 4, 2007.

10. Chris Ariens, “Jon Klein on Birthers: ‘It Seems This Story Is Dead,’ ” TVNewser, MediaBistro.com, July 24, 2009.

11. Matea Gold, “CNN Chief Addresses Obama Birth Controversy,” Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2009.

12. David Bauder, “Lou Dobbs Challenges His Own CNN Network,” Associated Press report published in Newsday, August 3, 2009.

13. Bill Carter, “CNN Last in TV News on Cable,” The New York Times, October 27, 2009.

14. Hollar, “CNN’s Immigration Problem.”

15. Jack Cafferty, The Situation Room, CNN, April 10, 2006.

16. Brian Stelter, “Fox’s Volley With Obama Intensifying,” The New York Times, October 11, 2009.

17. Peter Wallsten, “Dobbs Reaches Out to Latinos, With Politics in Mind,” The Wall Street Journal, November 25, 2009.