Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s decision to cancel her political advertising on Phoenix TV station KPHO for exposing the real reason she is so supportive of the racist Arizona show-me-your-papers law illustrates why the adverting departments and editorial departments are so segregated at newspapers and TV stations.
Brewer’s campaign manager and communications director are lobbyists for Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the country, and they run most of the prisons in Arizona. But not only that, CCA holds the contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to lock up illegal immigrants picked up in Arizona. The new show-me-your-papers law could send thousands of new clients and millions of dollars its way.
When the station brought that fact to the attention of Brewer’s campaign manager, he lied and said those people racially profiled and picked up on immigration violations go to local, public jails, but that’s simply not true. According to KPHO, “ICE’s spokesman in Phoenix told CBS 5 News the agency gets most of its detainees from local law enforcement.” In fact, the station filed a FOIA request and discovered Arizona agencies turned over 23,000 illegal immigrants to ICE over the past three years. “Hundreds of them ended in up CCA facilities.”
Brewer has refused to talk to the station, both through a formal request for a sit down interview, and via numerous ambush attempts by the TV guy to ask her about it at various campaign events where she basically runs away from the camera.
But to me, the big story is her decision to punish the TV station for doing an excellent job of investigative reporting and canceling her campaign advertising on the station. If the station has any credibility it will tell her to get bent and continue exposing her corruption.
Newspapers and TV stations are the only industries that often lose money for doing a great job.
2 comments:
That's odd the AZ law is Racist when it almost virtually copys the Federal law.
Were to you get this stuff from?
You’re finally right about something, hate America. The fact is that racial profiling is against the law, and driving while brown is not. ICE agents do nothing but immigration enforcement, meaning they do investigations, not just pull someone over for being brown. What does an illegal look like anyway? This racist law is simply unconstitutional.
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