Linkmeister

Lou Dobbs on 60 Minutes

This didn't exactly pass me by, but I did think it was so outlandish that nobody would believe it.

During his interview with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes last Sunday, Dobbs made a truly bizarre claim:

Following a report on illegal immigrants carrying diseases into the U.S., one of the correspondents on his show, Christine Romans, told Dobbs that there have been 7,000 cases of leprosy in the U.S. in the past three years.

60 Minutes checked that and found a report issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying that 7,000 is the number of leprosy cases over the last 30 years, not the past three. The report also says that nobody knows how many of those cases involve illegal immigrants.

"We went to try and check that number, 7,000. We can’t…," Stahl says.

"Well, I can tell you this. If we reported it, it’s a fact," Dobbs replies.

"You can’t tell me that. You did report it," Stahl says.

"I just did," Dobbs says.

"How can you guarantee that to me?" Stahl asks.

Says Dobbs, "Because I'm the managing editor. And that’s the way we do business. We don’t make up numbers, Lesley."

Now, I happen to live in a state which has some experience with leprosy, now known as Hansen's Disease. Our media is sensitive to stories about the disease, knowing that some members of our population had family members isolated during part of the last century because of their illness. I've seen nothing about these reputed 7,000 cases of leprosy. So was Dobbs wrong?

Take it away, David Niewert:

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that Dobbs is spreading the tale that immigrants are bringing leprosy to America, and concocting numbers out of whole cloth in the process:

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) today urged CNN to acknowledge that anchor Lou Dobbs has been spreading false information about the prevalence of leprosy and its supposed links to undocumented immigrants.

"We're not talking about a newscaster who simply made a mistake — we're talking about someone with a national platform who cites wildly inaccurate data to demean an entire group of people and who, when confronted with the truth, simply repeats the lie," said SPLC President Richard Cohen. "It's outrageous, and CNN should do something about it immediately."

In a letter sent today, Cohen asked CNN/U.S. President Jonathan Klein to take prompt action to correct the misinformation.

On "Lou Dobbs Tonight" this past Monday, Dobbs said he stands "100 percent behind" his show's claim that there had been 7,000 new cases of leprosy in the United States over a recent three-year period, and he further suggested that an increase in leprosy was due in part to "unscreened illegal immigrants coming into this country."

Dobbs' endorsement of the claim came after CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl challenged the leprosy figure during a profile of Dobbs on "60 Minutes" this past Sunday. Stahl cited a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services document that reported 7,029 cases over the past 30 years -- not three.

... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the number of leprosy cases diagnosed in the United States peaked at 361 in 1985. The figure reported on Dobbs' show is easily refuted with just a few minutes of research on the Internet.

Niewert goes on to find the source for Dobbs' numbers, and explains it further. If you're interested, you should read the whole thing.

What's the bottom line? Dobbs lied or at least misrepresented information in order to further his anti-immigrant agenda.

Posted by Linkmeister at May 11, 2007 09:35 AM | TrackBack