Update: We welcome Rochester Post Bulletin readers who are coming to this site from Editor Jay Furst's "Furst Draft" blog. First, we respect how quickly Furst responded. Second, our comment at standard journalistic fare, isn't a slam. It's what we want from newspapers. Finally, the headline could have been "immigration reduction group" rather than "anti-illegal immigration group," a choice that would have been entirely accurate about MCIR's agenda to end illegal immigration and to drastically curtail legal immigration. Do all Americans who worry about illegal immigration support steep reductions in legal immigration? Typically, we hear people say words to the effect, "I have no problem with those coming in legally." The press should be clear about the agenda of immigration reform groups, left or right, rather than muddying already murky waters. [end update]
The Rochester Post Bulletin helped Minnesotans for Immigration Reduction hide its broader agenda when the paper ran a story about a planned visit to Austin's Welcome Center under the head: Anti-illegal immigration group challenges Welcome Center's role.
The Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction isn't merely an "anti-illegal" immigration group; it seeks to reduce legal immigration to the United States as well. Here are the group's objectives. Note what's first on the agenda:
Our Objectives
We feel that the number of legal immigrants should be cut back from the nearly 1-million we currently let in per year to 200,000. From 1924 – 1965, we let in an average of 178,000 immigrants per year.
Stop illegal immigration.
No more amnesties for illegal aliens.
Make English our national language.
Back in 2003, MPR reported about the group's connections with FAIR in Immigration reform group attracting adherents, critics:
FAIR wants to overturn new federal law it says has resulted in mass immigration. Although Marlene Nelson says FAIR isn't giving her group money, she admits she flew to Washington, D.C. to receive training from the group. She also receives materials and support from FAIR.
Critics like Devin Berghart say following the trail of support for Nelson's group is important.
According to tax forms from 1979 to the mid-'90s, FAIR received more than $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund. The Pioneer Fund was established in 1937 to promote the breeding of white people who settled in the original 13 colonies.
Since its inception, the fund has given money to eugenics research. Eugenics is a science that aims to improve a race of people through selective breeding. It's a field that's largely discredited by scientists. Some critics call the practice racist.
The Pioneer Fund has funded research by various eugenics scientists, including the late William B. Shockley. He contended that African-Americans are inherently intellectually inferior to whites.
Pioneer Fund's tax forms show it also gave money to a national immigration reform group, Project USA. Several news outlets, including the Washington Post and the Associated Press, identify Paul Westrum, the co-founder of the Steele County Coalition for Immigration Reduction, as the Midwest representative for Project USA.
Westrum denies this. He says he's filled in for Project USA's president when he couldn't make it to press conferences in the Midwest.
"This happens a lot of times," Westrum says. "Just because you're answering questions for somebody who can't be here, they automatically figure you're some type of representative for them. I don't know if you could say you're a representative of him if you're associated with him on a few things."
Associations are important in this story. Paul Westrum says the Steele County Coalition for Immigration Reduction has no association with national groups promoting eugenics. He and Marlene Nelson say neither of them have received money from such groups. They say their goal is to help people see that immigration reform means immigration reduction.
More here from the City Pages. And more recent reports confirm that the group's agenda has not changed. Take this from the Austin Daily Herald in April 2007:
Albert Lea resident Paul Westrum, recognized for his involvement in the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction, said that he has formed 32 related groups. The MCIR’s goals include cutting back the number of legal immigrants coming into the U.S., stopping illegal immigration, eliminating amnesty and making English the national language.
The Post Bulletin should be more accurate in labeling the group. The story itself looks at a flashpoint in a community, standard journalistic fare.
Our second example of a misleading headline is drawn from The Hill: Lawmakers get huge scare in the skies over Iraq. The first two paragraphs:
Reps. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.) and Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) were recently on a nine-day trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Germany to investigate military healthcare. What they did not tell their constituents about after they came home was the scary ride they encountered while flying in a Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq.
During the flight, the helicopter automatically triggered anti-missile flares. The passengers knew it was not a routine flare firing, explained an aide who was present, but a reaction triggered by a honing radar lock somewhere on the ground. One aide on the trip remarked that he knew what the flares meant and was still frightened. “My butt puckered,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
So an anonymous aide was frightened. It's not surprising that Walz didn't think to mention that to the press. What's astonishing at all is that the Hill thought that the squib was somehow news at all.
We've been hearing stories from returning vets--most recently at a baby shower in Nicollet County--about how their brothers-in-arms' traumatic brain injury (TBI) isn't brought on by the impact of just one IED rocking or destroying a humvee, but from being in three or four (or more) such episodes. The Hill should start covering that if they want scary.
Walz alluded to these sorts of combat incidents when he talked to the press, since the purpose of the travel was to examine medical record keeping. With TBI, it's important to keep records for soldiers who seem merely "shaken up" because knowledge of the repeated episodes is important to doctors who will later care for the wounded warrior.
But rather than the story about working to provide better care for active duty personnel and veterans--which the Congressman shared with reporters--the Hill deems the reaction of a civilian's orifice to flares worth covering. Somewhere, someone must care about this puckering. If you know, please don't tell us.
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