The Pew Hispanic Center has a credible reputation of releasing relevant news worthy items at critical times such as an election period. However, there is an ethnic bias in the reportage of the news. This is understandable because of the number of Latinos who apparently are affected by the immigration issue.

Pope Benedict XVI's utterance on immigration is reported as a news item but technically it is an opinion. We can call it a Papal opinion. The Pope made his comments during the Catholic Church's World Day of Migrants and Refugees. His comments came at a time when the issue of immigration has become a very sensitive political debate both in the U.S and Europe. The media treated the comment as a news story because the statement emanated from the Vatican. The comment did not address the complexity of the social, economic and political problems posed by "illegal" imimigrations to governments. The story therefore does not qualify as news. At best it would have made a fitting editporial comment in a Vatican media

This editorial by the New York Times is what I call responsible journalism. The NYTImes is calling for a solution to the poisoned climate surrounding the immigration reform debate. Responsible journalism is not just about reporting and interpreting the news and current affairs. At time like these when the social climate is poisoned and biased it is fitting for a newspaper to argue and advocate in the interest of the nationa as a whole. That is good journalism.

The report is an interesting human angle story but not well wrtten. The woman, Eulalia Garcia Maturey was reported to have lived in the US for a hundred years but the writer could not name or identify the relative who was quoted. There are no details of the children who were said to have been raised by the woman. What happened to the children she raid. The husband of Eulalia died in 1982. Why did it take a long time before she took the oath of citizenship.

The headline of this story suggests that a number of textbooks used in Texas contained pro-Islamic bias. In the story there was no mention of the textbooks referred to by the news story. The reporter based his story on a resolution by some conservative members of the Texas Board of Education. The report was not based on any verifiable evidence except an interview with some un-named members of the Texas Board of Education.

This is a balanced feature story about how a government health agency treats immigrants in its facility. The story has no anti-immigrants bias. The story is well sourced. The writer identified and spoke to key personnel in various hospitals in New York, and selected cities across the US and writes about how health care providers are redefining traditional notions of health care. The story is factual and well sourced. The reporter interviewed health educators, nurses, obstetricians, doctors and a Chief Diversity Officer. The story is very informative and tells how medical workers are crossing cultural boundaries in order to provide specialised care for immigrant patients. Nowhere in the story is any mention made of the fact that ... More »