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Geraldo Rivera Challenges Hispanics, Criticizes Broadcasters
MIAMI -- May 19, 2008: Holding nothing back, Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera today charged that CNN's Lou Dobbs revived his career with the immigration debate, and charged that Dobbs and others who support stricter immigration enforcement and the deportation of undocumented immigrants are twisting and -- in some cases -- even fabricating data to support their position. Rivera also criticized fellow Latinos who don't support immigration reform and challenged radio to balance out those who oppose such reforms.
"Lou Dobbs has resuscitated a failed career as a business journalist on the back of this vulnerable population," Rivera said in his keynote address at the Radio Ink Hispanic Radio Conference. "You cannot watch Lou Dobbs on CNN without seeing a picture of a young Mexican kid scaling the wall --- climbing the border."
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Rivera continued, "They go through the most amazing contortions to make immigration from Mexico part of the news that they're covering in a way that distorts reality -- that is not just un-factual, it is anti-factual."
To support his claim, Rivera cited Dobbs' coverage of a recent FBI study on violent crime. FBI Director Robert Mueller held a press conference and announced an unfortunate spike in violent crime, "which attracted a lot of attention because it followed a period where crime had been trending down," Rivera said.
He continued, "I watched the press conference, and that evening I put on Lou Dobbs' program. The lead story was 'Violent Crime Spikes in the United States: Illegal Immigration Is the Reason.' I had seen the briefing, and no mention of illegal immigration was made. Indeed, the cities that had suffered the spike most severely were St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, and Philadelphia, all cities that have had no meaningful Latino or other immigration in recent years. They made it up, just like Michael Savage makes up his connections between immigration and crime. Just like, on my own network, Sean Hannity creates out of whole cloth a relationship between Latino immigration and terrorism."
Rivera said, "So deeply ingrained is the notion that Latino immigration and crime are inexplicably interwoven -- it is a lie, it is false, it is a fraudulent statement. And yet it goes out on the airwaves unchallenged, night after night, building up a resentment and a fear that is metastasizing into an anti-Hispanic climate in the country."
To address the issue, Rivera called on both English- and Spanish-language broadcasters to offer an opposing voice.
"There is another way to do this than the way we're doing this now, and the responsibility starts right here, with us," he said. "Talk radio is a funny kind of hybrid. Talk radio is fact-based. It's kind of factodial. When you hear a host making a statement or throwing out a statistic, you've got to take it with a grain of salt. The audience doesn’t understand that disconnect.
"I'm not putting down anyone who wants to listen to Michael Savage. If you want to listen to him, God bless you, go ahead. You can move your lips along when he's on one of his anti-Latino rants. It's a free country -- I've got no problem with that. But where is the other side of this issue? Where is the other side in this equation?
"I'm not talking about Spanish-language radio -- I'm talking about English language radio. Isn't there an audience? Won't there be some people who are interested in fact, as opposed to wild, zealous false rhetoric? The voices of righteousness and compromise have been scared away."
Rivera didn't reserve his criticism for anti-reform crusaders, however, calling his fellow Latinos to task if they fail to support politicians who are taking up the cause of immigration reform.
He said, "Any Hispanic who votes for someone Republican or Democrat who's opposed to rational immigration reform is an Uncle Tom. Geraldo says that. What are you gonna do, fire me? You're voting against your own families and your own self-interests."
He continued, "We have to stand up and be counted. We have to get off our behinds -- we have real problems to take care of. Radio stations have to be involved in the process of helping us esteem education. We don't extol the virtue of education. We don't honor sufficiently the kid who defies the temptations of the street or an easy cop-out to a blue-collar job -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- but we want our children to be educated. We need to be role models and encourage role models. What are you going to do to help us break out?"
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