A Splendid Synthesis Of The Facts Regarding The Rise Of The Current Immigration Issue, As It Has Climbed A Wall Of Smears

Immigration, Mainstream Media, and the 2008 Election

By Stephen Steinlight
Download the .pdf version

"...another standard device to engender sympathy for illegal aliens in "human interest" stories. It locates point of view exclusively in them, ceding them all the direct quotation in the narrative as they passionately relate their travails and allege pervasive bigotry. No member of the group
supporting the resolution addresses us directly; the reporter relates their denials of bigotry."

"The grassroots’ revolt against the elite’s immigration policy is as welcome [...] as was Banquo’s ghost at Macbeth’s banquet. Like Banquo’s bloody, guilt- and terror-inducing apparition, it may also be a premonition of regime change feared and loathed by the political and financial elite and their media flacks.
Media Blackout
One way to try defusing this obstreperous movement is starving it of coverage, and there seems to be an implicit understanding in the mainstream print media and the TV networks to do just that. So monolithic is the worldview of the mainstream media one need not posit a conspiracy to end up with what amounts to objective collusion.
Whenever possible, its strategy of choice is omission; it is exceedingly difficult for media consumers to question what is absent. "
"Prescribed Journalism
When omission is not viable, mainstream media coverage of immigration is so formulaic it resembles a caricature literary genre, and an inflexible one at that, replete with such de rigueur conventions as recurring plots, stock characters, euphemized standard usage, repeating motifs, core imagery and metaphors, a consistent worldview, intrusive moral commentary by an omniscient narrator in the persons of the "objective reporter" or the editor, recognizable villains and heroes, and heavy-handed political didacticism."
JB comments to follow later; there is a lot to think about here.
My first impression is that a powerful intellect has gone over a stunning mass of (dis)information, and drawn out some revelatory conclusions.