Imagine working for a news organization owned by a movie studio that is actively looking for ways to dump your low-rated channel, being invited to an all-hands meeting, and having your biggest gripe be … one of the few conservative contributors who draws viewers. CNN chief Mark Thompson must have wondered whether the newsroom needs editors or babysitters.
Status and the Daily Beast reported on Friday that the meeting turned into a struggle session aimed at the one contributor who makes the rest of them struggle. And they targeted Scott Jennings for using the proper legal term for illegal aliens, which just happens to be … “illegal aliens.” No, I am not kidding:
Thompson hosted an all-hands meeting with CNN employees, giving them the opportunity to raise questions and concerns about the network’s current state and future.
During the meeting, staff questioned the behavior of Jennings, who frequently gets into verbal spats with other CNN guests as a firebrand Trump loyalist.
One area of concern was Jennings being allowed to describe undocumented immigrants as “illegal aliens,” a term that violates the network’s editorial standards, according to Status.
Maybe they should ask why using a term in federal statutes violates CNN’s editorial standards. Politifact tried to debunk this argument in 2018, but ended up being schooled by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The USCIS spokesman pointed out two uses of it in federal statutes, and another two in congressional acts:
Section 1252(c) of the “Aliens and Nationality” laws is titled: “Authorizing State and local law enforcement officials to arrest and detain certain illegal aliens.” The section authorizes state and local law enforcement officials “to arrest and detain an individual who— (1) is an alien illegally present in the United States; and (2) has previously been convicted of a felony in the United States and deported or left the United States after such conviction.”
Section 1365, titled “Reimbursement of States for costs of incarcerating illegal aliens and certain Cuban nationals,” applies to any alien convicted of a felony who’s in the country unlawfully and whose most recent entry “was without inspection, or whose most recent admission to the United States was as a nonimmigrant and whose period of authorized stay as a nonimmigrant expired, or whose unlawful status was known to the government.”
FitzGerald also pointed out that a section of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 authorized the hiring of 25 new federal lawyers to “prosecute persons who bring into the United States or harbor illegal aliens or violate other criminal statutes involving illegal aliens.” Also noted: A section of the act requiring an annual report detailing “the number of illegal aliens” sentenced or jailed for felonies in state and federal prisons.
Politifact then declared that “mentions don’t mean much.” Neither does Politifact’s integrity, it seems, which ranks closely to CNN’s.
At any rate, the term “illegal aliens” is in fact the proper legal term for people who enter the United States illegally. Media outlets like CNN and their jock-sniffers at Politifact like to hide that behind a drizzle of politically correct effluvium, which has seen style guides shift from “illegal aliens” to “illegal immigrants,” then to “undocumented immigrants,” then to “undocumented workers,” then to “undocumented citizens” (a CNN innovation, by the way), and so on. (Insert “dreamers” where you will.) There is nothing wrong or hostile about the legal term; those who come to the country are “aliens” by legal definition, and if they do not follow the law to enter, then they are “illegal aliens” as a distinction from “legal aliens.” Neither of the words has any relation to ethnicity or creed, either separately or together.
CNN and other Protection Racket Media have tried to bar this term, not because it’s somehow demeaning or insulting, but because it is accurate. For years, and probably decades, the American media complex has been using euphemisms intended to deflect from the legal reality of illegal immigration in favor of editorial slants in favor of open-borders policies. The outrage by the staff of CNN at the use of the legal, factual, and unemotional term “illegal aliens” (and their introduction of “undocumented citizens”) exposes their operation as a propaganda outlet rather than a news organization.
It also shows how the staff misses the forest for the trees. Jennings provides almost a singular pushback to the progressive editorial and reporting slant on CNN, along with Shermichael Singleton, in these panel discussions. Jennings actually attracts viewers for that reason, which is why CNN extended his contract last year, and why CBS is reportedly interested in wooing him away. Jennings usually has to deal with three or four panelists opposing him at the same time, and routinely bests them … which is the real basis for their complaints to Thompson. They’d rather kick Jennings off the air and lose their relevance and viewers than debate him on the air.
Perhaps Thompson will choose instead to find panelists of more courage to replace the complainers. However, Thompson has more pressing problems at the moment, such as creating some credibility at CNN and reverse the bleeding of viewership. One has to wonder why CNN staff at this all-hands meeting don’t share those concerns, and why their biggest priority is to push one of the few conservative voices they have off the air. Except, of course, we don’t have to wonder at all about this latest demonstration of progressive fragility.
Editor’s Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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