FOX NEWS SHOWS WHY REAL NEWS REQUIRES REAL JOURNALISTS

…Seattle has sued President Trump, Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security for removing Sanctuary City funding.

 

 

Fox News is an example of what you get when you replace real Journalists with unqualified talking-heads.

You may have noticed that, with the loss of Greta Van Susteren and Megan Kelly to NBC, the FOX NEWS regular line-up no longer is staffed with professional journalists.  Today at FOX, their key line up is only a large group of right-wing, talk show hosts.  Yes, FOX NEWS might as well have a string of “Rush Limbaugh” types because that pretty much is what they have with the likes of: Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson, Neil Cavuto, and Bret Baier as their basic regular line up.   They only come close to having a professional journalist on the air when Chris Wallace occasionally appears.

 

 

This was shown to be the situation when Tucker Carlson made a fool of himself as he challenged a guest on his program that had brought him the real facts about “Sanctuary Cities”.

 

You are probably aware that right-wing conservatives are against the concept of Sanctuary Cities.

 

So, just what is the official definition of a “Sanctuary City”?

 

In the United States and Canada, a sanctuary city is a city which permits residence by illegal immigrants that have not broken local laws, and to help them avoid deportation. Such policies can be set expressly in local laws or observed in practice, but the designation "sanctuary city" does not have a precise legal definition.

 

Being that FOX and apparently most of the FOX viewers are against the idea of sanctuary cities, Tucker Carlson's reaction to his guest's factual assertions about sanctuary cities was a clear example what his audience must also feel about these cities.

 

Carlson started the session by playing a video of a group of individuals protesting against these cities, and he obviously felt this video would give a black eye to all sanctuary cities.  Instead, what he did was to open the door on an inconvenient truth.

 

Carlson obviously expected that his video segment would counter any of those Progressives who regularly appear on FOX’s conservative TV programs.  You know, those Progressives who are armed with factual counterpoints that usually catches the right-wingers off-guard. 

 

Tucker’s guest, a member of the Latino Victory Project's, Cristóbal Alex, did just that with the following exchange with Mr. Carlson:

 

"So, the head of the New York City Council, Melissa Mark-Viverito, said that enforcing our immigration laws, he said at the conference, that American immigration laws were tantamount to ethnic cleansing," Tucker Carlson said. "Do you agree with that?"

 

Cristóbal started his response on a positive note by thanking Carlson for having him on the program. He then immediately started talking about the term “sanctuary” with a positive connotation.  He then pointed out a couple of inconvenient facts about sanctuary cities.

 

Cristóbal said, "I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful that the speaker invited us to an amazing conference, which was the first of its kind in the country.  The idea behind the conference was to bring together local officials from around the country to develop policies that will strengthen sanctuary city policies and protect immigrants. The speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, was a champion for progressive values, a champion for immigrants, and the point that she was trying to make is that sanctuary cities are actually much safer. And what Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and what this Department of Justice are trying to do is pass draconian laws that will make it much harder and more unsafe for our cities in the United States."

 

But Carlson was  obviously unwilling to accept this statement and it totally took Carlson off his anti-sanctuary message and into a debate that he would not win.  That's because, the facts were just not on Tucker's side.

 

However, he still tried, as Tucker so often does, with:  "I've heard this before, and, just to be clear, there's no social science to support your position on that," Carlson said. "There are no actual studies that show a sanctuary city is safer.....Sorry."

 

Cristóbal did not let that comment go unchallenged.  "I disagree with you, Tucker," Alex responded.

 

As expected, Tucker tried to end the conversation right there.  And of course, to also have the last word: "There's no disagreement -- there haven't been any studies done on that, that show it," Tucker said.

 

But Cristóbal responded:  "Let me just correct you there...I can tell you about it right now. The most comprehensive study to date is the University of California study done by Mr. Ted Wong. It basically looked at sanctuary cities across the country, and it said that there are 35.5 fewer crimes committed per 10,000 in sanctuary cities, than in non-sanctuary cities. It [the study] also said it's even better in smaller municipalities. And, most importantly, sanctuary cities have stronger economies, lower poverty rates, lower uninsured rates."

 

The silence showed that Tucker was dumb-struck and he had no comeback.  So ,as usual, he resorted to the possible causation, and speculation argument.

 

“I don't want to waste either one of our times here. That's not causation," said Tucker Carlson. "There's no established connection between those issues. It's merely speculative…."

 

"I don't agree!"  Cristóbal responded.  “These are the facts, it is not speculative and it is proven in multiple cities across the country.”

 

Once again, no response from Tucker.  The segment then abruptly ended.

 

This was just one example of what we get when a TV Network tries to replace real Journalists with unqualified talking-heads.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017