Why the elite press won’t report seriously on immigration
by Steve Sailer
Despite its tradition of editorializing in favor of openness and public participation, the prestige press offered virtually no complaints when the Senate recently voted to skip holding hearings on the convoluted “comprehensive immigration reform” package worked out behind closed doors by Sens. Ted Kennedy and John Kyl with Bush administration support. Nor did the mainstream media object when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced his intention to ram this vast concoction of highly debatable effect through the Senate in one week, a ploy that even Reid soon admitted was wrong.
You might think that our nation’s elites would find immigration the single most fascinating domestic policy issue to explore. After all, besides ourselves, nothing is more interesting to us than other human beings. And few political questions would seem more compelling than which of the 6 billion foreigners we want to become our fellow citizens, neighbors, and, eventually, the ancestors of our descendents. Immigration policy directly affects nearly every other question of our day, from education and crime to economic inequality and healthcare costs. (Illustration at right: Long Live My Race)
Yet the national newspapers cover immigration with no more enthusiasm than they muster for local zoning board meetings. When they deign to discuss immigration at all, their approach is superficial and sentimental. Debate is routinely denounced as “divisive,” as if democracy is the opposite of division. The palpable contempt the mainstream media radiates toward anyone well-informed about immigration contributes to the vapidity of its coverage.
An insightful economist, writing under the protection of anonymity, recently pointed out: “Power today very largely consists of being able to define what criticisms are off the wall, over the top, and out to lunch. … Those who wield it do not ‘run the world.’ Rather they can block significant changes that reduce their power.”