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Project for Excellence in Journalism
Did Talk Hosts Help Derail the Immigration Bill?
PEJ's Index Finds that in Weeks Preceding the Senate Vote Failure, Immigration was the Second-Most Popular Talk Topic and that Critics of the Legislation Dominated the Airwaves
On June 8 -- the day after the immigration bill suffered a major defeat when its backers failed to get a Senate vote -- there was barely disguised gloating on the part of some talk hosts.
CNN's Lou Dobbs, a staunch opponent of the bill who has spent more time on immigration than any other host, opened his program by announcing "a crushing defeat for the pro-illegal alien lobby in its efforts to ram amnesty through the U.S. Senate in defiance of the will of the American people."
Substituting for Rush Limbaugh, conservative radio talker Roger Hedgecock told his listeners that this was a case of "everyone on the talk show circuit…talking about this issue in a way that has educated a larger percentage of Americans to what's really at stake than the Senate is used to."
On the same day, radio host Michael Savage, another fierce opponent of the measure, responded to the criticism that extremist hosts had conspired to defeat the bill by quoting conservative icon Barry Goldwater.
"As a great American once said, 'extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.'"
According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism's Talk Show Index, in the period from May 13 through June 8, the immigration debate was the second-most popular talk topic (18%), narrowly trailing the presidential race (21%) and doubling the time spent on the next biggest subject, the Iraq policy debate (9%).
But while the amount of time devoted to the subject is telling, equally revealing is the question of who talked about it. In that 26-day period, the airwaves were dominated by vocal hosts opposed to the legislation who often referred to it with the politically damning term "amnesty bill."