CNN devoted three and a half minutes of coverage on Monday's Newsroom
to a protest by "two dozen, maybe three dozen" people who were against
two proposed laws targeting illegal immigration in Arizona. The network
showed live and taped footage of this liberal protest. By contrast, CNN
spent a mere 11 seconds to the March for Life in January and showed no
footage from the pro-life demonstration.
Anchor Brooke Baldwin led the 3 pm Eastern hour with the pro-illegal immigration rally:
BALDWIN: There is a new front opening up in the immigration battle.
Where else would this be happening? Arizona. At this hour, children and
their parents- I'm talking also itty-bitty babies there being carried-
they're marching on the Capitol complex building in Phoenix, just as the
state Senate considers another proposed crackdown. So, here's what you
need to know: there's this new bill that would essentially deny American
citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil if their parents came here
illegally.
Baldwin then turned to correspondent Casey Wian, who explained the two
bills: "One of them would require that at least one parent be a citizen
or legal resident for a child born in Arizona to actually be considered a
citizen of the state of Arizona. The other one would create a special
class of birth certificates that would be issued to non-citizens."
During the first part of the segment, taped video from the protest
played on the screen.
The CNN anchor then asked about the demonstration specifically, and the
video shifted to a live shot. At one point, Balwin acknowledged the
small size of the crowd:
BALDWIN: What about the people we see who have just shown up there on
the Capitol in the last 20 minutes or so? Who are the people who are
marching, and what's their argument against this?
WIAN: There's a small group of people here who are out in front of the
state Senate chambers protesting. They say that this bill is trying to
reopen settled legislation, that the Supreme Court has already ruled on
this issue, and that anyone born in the United States, other than the
children of a diplomat, are automatically U.S. citizens. They also say
that this is a very mean-spirited effort, to use their words. They say
on the heels of SB-1070, which we saw last year, and several other state
laws that have been enacted to try to crack down on illegal immigrants-
they say that this is another black eye, in their words, for the State
of Arizona. They say it's mean-spirited, and they say it's going to be
struck down by the courts, so why bother- is essentially what they're
saying.
BALDWIN: Casey Wian, thank you. And I just want to remind everyone-
these pictures you're seeing, that are on the right side of your screen,
those are live pictures- there they are again- and by my sort of guesstimate, maybe two dozen, maybe three dozen- so, obviously, not a huge crowd, but a crowd nonetheless.
Exactly two weeks earlier, John King USA was the only program during the
afternoon and evening of January 24, the day of the March of Life, and
the morning of January 25 which mentioned the annual event.
During his 11 second brief,
anchor John King showed no footage from the demonstration. One might
conclude from this disparity that, in CNN's eyes, a tiny rally for a
liberal cause is more worthy of coverage than a pro-life march which
draw tens of thousands of people every year.
- Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.
