Sulzberger's Voice

How the New York Times Editorial Page Came to Poison the Immigration Debate

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies shows how the New York Times editorial page has rejected the moderate liberalism that helped build consensus for a landmark 1986 immigration reform and now poisons the national debate by attacking as racists those who disagree with its proposals.

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The report, titled "Sulzberger's Voice," makes clear that the transformation at the Times is the work of its publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, who delights in provocation and confrontation. It was written by CIS senior research fellow Jerry Kammer, winner of a 2006 Pulitzer for national reporting.

The report is online at: http://cis.org/how-arthur-sulzburger-radicalized-the-new-york-times-editorial-page-on-immigration

With careful documentation, the report traces the course of Sulzberger's project to renounce moderation on the editorial page. It cites an authoritative book on the Times that describes how Sulzberger, shortly after becoming publisher in 1992, set about his work of "noisily banging the New York Times into a shape that reflected his own values, beliefs, and personality."

Kammer says that while Sulzberger claims to promote the tolerance and inclusiveness that are essential to American society, the Times's immigration editorials have "carried its good intentions to a destructive extreme."

The report takes particular note of the work of the Times's lead editorial writer on immigration, Lawrence Downes. Describing Downes as Sulzberger's "passionate voice," it shows that Downes has gone to the extreme of condemning concerns about the effects of immigration as "an effective substitute" for the racism that has been driven from the public square.

Kammer shows how Downes distorted opposing street demonstrations in Phoenix, "giving them the power of Manichean myth" as he advanced the immigration vision of Arthur Sulzberger. It shows that while Sulzberger said of his editorial page, "We needed passion," it often has produced poison that has infected a debate that should be open, civil, and well informed.

The report on the Times's editorial page is part one of a two-part series. Part two, which will be released next week, critiques the paper's news coverage of immigration.

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit, research organization. Since its founding in 1985, the Center has pursued a single mission – providing immigration policymakers, the academic community, news media, and concerned citizens with reliable information about the social, economic, environmental, security, and fiscal consequences of legal and illegal immigration into the United States.

CONTACT: Marguerite Telford
[email protected] (202) 466-8185

SOURCE Center for Immigration Studies

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