Hate Radio and the War on Immigration

[Commentary] Anti-immigrant rhetoric is ramping up on the public airwaves.

Rep Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) is targeting the media as a significant factor in the escalating war over immigration reform. "You've got Dobbs, you've got Beck... Dobbs for six to seven years has consistently been demonizing every immigrant as a criminal." Talk radio falsehoods such as increased border crime and beheadings in the desert are typical. "When people think that is 'news,' it's a problem," Grijalva says. "We're closed out of that media. There is no equal time."

Rep Grijalva brought up Congress' rewrite of the Communications Act as a needed solution to the media misinformation problem. The 1996 rewrite of the Act deregulated radio ownership, changing the rule which capped radio ownership at 40 stations per person (corporate or otherwise) and allowing companies like Clear Channel to buy unlimited numbers of radio stations. (Clear Channel snapped up 1200 stations at the time, and programmed most of them with "Conservative" Talk Radio.) The current rewrite, led by Sens Kerry (D-MA) and Rockefeller (D-WV) and Reps. Waxman (D-CA) and Boucher (D-VA), is mainly focusing on issues of network neutrality and broadband. "As we struggle with the Communications Act," says Rep Grijalva, "it's all about new media. We need to take this opportunity to fix what's wrong with old media."