Fox News Lies in Headlines about “Illegal Immigrants”

Recently, the California Legislature passed a bill that would make permanent legal residents eligible to serve on juries.  Fox News reported this development with the headline, “California bill would let illegal immigrants serve on juries”–  I carefully used cut and paste to make the copy of the headline, because I didn’t want to make any mistakes.  It literally says, “illegal immigrants.”  In the body of the story, the reporter makes a more honest statement, but the headline does all the damage.

In fact, I repeat, the bill says “permanent legal residents” (often called “green card holders”, people who are legally certified to be in the US permanently and to work here.)  That is a step above “tourists”, who usually hold a six month permission to be in the US, but not to work.  It is a further step above “illegal immigrants”, who have either overstayed their tourist visas (about 40 percent of them) or who have slipped into the US without meeting any agent of the US Immigration and Naturalization agency.

Why would the supposedly news-reporting Fox News put such a lying headline on a supposedly newsworthy story?  Because they are trying to slander the California Legislature.  Why?  Because the people who are in charge at Fox News want to make their readers think that the government of California is illegitimate.  Why?  Why even ask?  It’s too bad the Legislature can’t sue for defamation of character.  It’s too bad there isn’t a government agency that penalizes “news” organizations for printing lies.