Reporting on Illegal Immigrants

There has been much discussion in the last few days about a policy we have here at FM News/Talk 92.3 KTAR regarding our reporting on crime.

The local NBC television affiliate led their newscast on Tuesday night with a story on KTAR's policy.

What is that policy? Simply put, we generally include the immigration status of suspects in our reporting on crime. If police tell us that a suspect is in the country illegally, we tell you that in our news reporting. Some other news departments in the state join us in having a similar policy. Others adamantly disagree with it.

The Arizona Republic actively removes any mention of legal status in the vast majority of their crime reporting. Channel 12, and a couple other TV stations do the same.

We have a different view at KTAR.

Why?

Every poll done by any organization seeking to learn what the population thinks are the biggest problems in this state always see the exact same result. Every poll shows that residents of this state overwhelmingly view illegal immigration as THE biggest problem. There is no exception. That's not me, KTAR, or anyone else saying that. It's the people of this state.

When the people of this state vote, they consistently and overwhelmingly approve the toughest anti-immigration laws that are put on the ballot. The public in recent years has demanded that judges ask the residency status of suspects in their courtrooms. The public overwhelmingly wants law enforcement to ask the people they pick up on the streets whether they are here legally or not.

Why would it be different for the media?

It's not.

Some people claim we are showing bias in reporting residency status. I agree. We are. And, those who choose to censor immigration status out of crime reporting are also showing clear bias. They are choosing to hold information back from the public. Why?

I am a champion of giving the public as much information as possible. The audience can then interpret the information as they wish and make appropriate judgments on their own. We will always be responsible in our reporting. Our news department will not use immigration, race, economic status, marital status, religion, etc in our stories in an irresponsible manner.

What we will do is give the KTAR listener information. What we will not do is view ourselves in an elitist manner, supposing our degrees or professional training make us better than the information consumer and entitle us to be the ultimate gatekeeper whose job it is to determine what the public can and cannot deal with in our stories.

When our newspapers and some of our television stations act that way it disguists me. It shows how out of touch they are and how biased they've become in their news judgment and news presentation. This is one of the main reasons that so many people are now turning to the Internet and radio for their news. I don't expect the trend to change anytime soon.