By Don Irvine ——Bio and Archives--September 30, 2011
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“WHEREAS, the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics urges all journalists to be ‘honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information’ and; “WHEREAS, mainstream news reports are increasingly using the politically charged phrase ‘illegal immigrant’ and the more offensive and bureaucratic ‘illegal alien’ to describe undocumented immigrants, particularly Latinos and; “WHEREAS, a fundamental principle embedded in our U.S. Constitution is that everyone (including non-citizens) is considered innocent of any crime until proven guilty in a court of law and; “WHEREAS, this constitutional doctrine, often described as ‘innocent-until-proven-guilty,’ applies not just to U.S. Citizens but to everyone in the United States and; “WHEREAS, only the court system, not reporters and editors, can decide when a person has committed an illegal act and; “WHEREAS, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists is also concerned with the increasing use of pejorative and potentially inaccurate terms to describe the estimated 11 million undocumented people living in the United States; “THEREFORE, be it resolved that the Society of Professional Journalists convention of delegates: urges journalists and style guide editors to stop the use of illegal alien and encourage continuous discussion and re-evaluation of the use of illegal immigrant in news stories.”The only people offended are those in the SPJ who disagree with the efforts of those who are fighting the illegal immigration problem in this country. By passing this resolution they are clearly taking a political stand on the issue, which brings into question their desire for objectivity when reporting the news. But apparently this doesn’t violate the SPJ’s Code of Ethics which never mentions the word objectivity. It only asks journalists to test for accuracy and to not deliberately distort stories. No wonder media bias still runs rampant today. (h/t richard prince)
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Don Irvine is the chairman of Accuracy in Media and its sister organization Accuracy in Academia. As the son of Reed Irvine, who launched AIM in 1969, he developed an understanding of media bias at an early age, and has been actively involved with AIM for over 30 years.