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.
[Video embedded below the page break]
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.
