America’s Voice to Run Ad Targeting Lou Dobbs During Latino in America Broadcast

How Can CNN Deal with Latinos in America Without Mentioning the Nation’s Leading Demagogue of Latinos in America?Today America’s Voice, in partnership with Media Matters for America, announced its intention to run an ad calling for CNN to drop Lou Dobbs during the network’s upcoming broadcast of Latino in America. America’s Voice and Media Matters for America raised nearly $16,000 from grassroots supporters to air the ad during CNN’s heavily promoted four-hour Latino in America series on October 21 and 22.  The ad criticizes CNN for giving Lou Dobbs a daily primetime platform to promote falsehoods and hate against immigrants.  According to CNN, the series does not mention the role of Lou Dobbs specifically or the role talk radio and cable television shows generally play in creating a hostile climate for Latinos in America.

“How can CNN, which calls itself ‘the most trusted name in news’ do a four-hour special on Latinos in America without mentioning the fact that Lou Dobbs demonizes Latinos in America on a daily basis?  A two-part special on the challenges facing Latinos in this country, hosted by professional journalist Soledad O-Brien, is welcome.  But given the platform the network gives Dobbs, it hardly balances the scales,” said Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice.

He added, “The truth is that CNN already airs a nightly program on Latinos in America.  It’s called Lou Dobbs Tonight, and for 260 hours a year CNN provides air time for anti-immigrant distortions and anti-Latino propaganda.  His broadcasts have created a climate that has led to real pain and suffering in Latino community generally and in the Latino immigrant community especially.  If CNN wants to maintain its integrity, the network should drop Dobbs.  If not, at least it should have the courage to state the outsized role he plays in making life more difficult and more dangerous for Latinos in America.”

During the course of several years, Dobbs has spread lies about immigrants and distorted the immigration policy debate on an almost daily basis during his nightly broadcasts.  His most outrageous and widely discredited claim is that immigrants have been responsible for the spread of leprosy in the United States – a claim sourced by a known white supremacist with no background in public health, and one that Dobbs has never retracted.  CNN President Jonathan Klein has repeatedly defended Dobbs’ coverage of the immigration issue, calling it “legitimate.”

To view the ad, “CNN: Drop the Hate, Drop Dobbs,” go to http://www.AmericasVoiceOnline.org/CNNVideo.

For more information on the controversy surrounding Dobbs and CNN, please visit: www.DropDobbs.com and www.AmericasVoiceOnline.org.

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