Posted on November 12, 2009

BastaDobbs.com Announces Victory: Lou Dobbs to Leave CNN

BastaDobbs.com, November 11, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 11, 2009

Contact: Brandon Hatler, DobbsMustGo@gmail.com

BastaDobbs.com Announces Victory: Lou Dobbs to Leave CNN

NEW YORK–Responding to the news Wednesday that Lou Dobbs will leave his post as a longtime anchor on CNN, the leaders of BastaDobbs.com–a national Latino-led coalition that had been advocating for his ouster–released the following statement:

“Our contention all along was that Lou Dobbs–who has a long record of spreading lies and conspiracy theories about immigrants and Latinos–does not belong on the ‘Most Trusted Name in News,'” said Roberto Lovato, co-founder of Presente.org, a national online advocacy organization coordinating the BastaDobbs.com campaign in conjunction with more than 40 local and regional Latino organizations from across the country. “We are thrilled that Dobbs no longer has this legitimate platform from which to incite fear and hate.”

The BastaDobbs.com campaign launched in mid-September, and included online petitions, a viral YouTube video, text-message campaign, radio PSAs and a series of events in 18 cities–organized in conjunction with the CNN special Latino in America. The message to CNN was that courting Latino viewers while keeping Dobbs on the network would not win them favor with the fastest-growing demographic in the country. Since then, more than 100,000 people have joined the effort. The events and the campaign garnered significant press coverage in both Spanish-language and mainstream media.

Lovato said the BastaDobbs.com victory marks a key turning point for the Latino community, as it moved from marching in the streets in 2006 to mounting a successful, high-tech campaign against one of the biggest and strongest media voices against common-sense immigration reform.

“The community is newly empowered and energized, and we are ready to fight for a respectful and civil media discourse when it comes to immigration coverage on mainstream news,” Lovato said. “This is only the beginning of a much longer-term effort.”


Statement by WCVI President Antonio Gonzalez on Lou Dobbs Resignation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE–5p, November 11, 2009

Contact: Antonio Gonzalez, 323-222-2217

I hail Lou Dobbs resignation from CNN. I also congratulate Presente.org and all their allies for their audacious leadership in holding “Goliath CNN” accountable for their hypocritical behavior in enabling openly bigoted Lou Dobbs over the years.

The resignation of Mr. Dobbs should serve as a warning to all those that promote racism, racial profiling and bigotry against immigrants and Latinos with impunity. Dobbs resignation heralds the beginning of the end of the current era of anti-immigrant policies, practices, and laws.

Indeed, now more than ever, we must redouble our efforts to prod Washington, DC to enact laws that legalize the undocumented and end polices like Homeland Security’s 287G program that foment racial profiling of people “that look like immigrants”, namely people of color.

Just as Presente.org led the way in holding Lou Dobbs accountable, Latino leadership and their allies must now hold Congress and the White House to their promises to enact just and humane policies for immigrants.

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About WCVI

The William C. Velásquez Institute (WCVI) is a tax-exempt, non-profit, non-partisan public policy analysis organization chartered in 1985. The purpose of WCVI is to: conduct research aimed at improving the level of political and economic participation in Latino and other underrepresented communities; To provide information to Latino leaders relevant to the needs of their constituents; To inform the Latino leadership and public about the impact of public policies on Latinos; To inform the Latino leadership and public about political opinions and behavior of Latinos.


E-mailed Message from SPLC President to Those on Its Mailing List

From: Richard Cohen, SPLC (mailto:splc@newsletter.splcenter.org)

Date: Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 1:06 PM

Subject: An end to Dobbs’ propaganda

To: __________________________

Nov. 12, 2009

Dear Friend,

Last night, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs announced his departure from the network. As you know, we’ve been highly critical of Dobbs because he has used his platform to spread myths and propaganda–poisoning the debate over immigration reform and inciting fear and hate against Latinos.

The SPLC was one of the first groups to bring public attention to Dobbs’ use of false information provided by racist hate groups.

With your support, we exposed his wildly inaccurate reporting about immigrants–such as his insistence that immigrants had brought thousands of new cases of leprosy to the United States during a recent three-year period. And we condemned his reliance on the Federation for American Immigration Reform as an authority on immigration issues. This is an organization we have named a hate group with longtime ties to white supremacists.

This past July, we called on CNN executives to fire Dobbs_after he relentlessly promoted the racist and utterly baseless idea that President Obama is not a native-born American citizen. Soon thereafter, a number of other organizations joined our call.

Immigration reform is an important and complex issue, one that should be debated honestly. We hope that Dobbs’ resignation sends a message to other commentators that the airwaves shouldn’t be used to vent extremist rhetoric and fan the flames of hate. Doing so has serious and sometimes violent consequences, as illustrated by the rise in hate crimes against Latinos and the unprecedented number of threats against Obama.

We are committed to exposing those who disseminate misinformation that foments hate. Together, we took a stand, and our actions made a difference. Thank you for everything you do to combat bigotry and intolerance.

Thank you for your support,

J. Richard Cohen President,

Southern Poverty Law Center