“1 in 3 fears immigrants influence elections,” blared the Tribune’s A4 headline on May 12. My pulse raced at the thought of those dastardly immigrants sullying our most sacred civic duty. And then I read the article, whose headline could much more correctly have read, “Only 1 in 3 believe Fox’s immigrant lies.” The article even quotes one of those 1 in 3 attributing her view to her Fox addiction.
Any one of a multitude of headlines would have been a better description of the content of Anita Snow’s article on citizen views on elections and immigrants. She summarized survey data that underlined how most citizens’ views differ markedly from those heralded in the headline. Even among Republicans, those most heavily targeted by the anti-immigrant rhetoric, only 36% fear a “loss of influence” due to immigration (compared with 27% of Democrats). That could have warranted a headline “Politicians’ anti-immigrant grandstanding ineffective.”
Snow also describes the long, and growing longer, path it takes legal immigrants to be able to participate in elections, and the data on the minuscule to nonexistent efforts of noncitizens to register to vote. How about a headline: “Election integrity unaffected by immigrants.”
I must conclude that whoever writes headlines, be it at The Tribune or The Associated Press — the source of the article — must write them not to inform about the article content, but to quicken the pulse of uninformed or fearful readers (those who, unlike George Pyle, grew up on “Frito Bandito” cartoons).
Ken Jameson, Salt Lake City
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