Jose Antonio Vargas: From Journalist to Illegal Immigrant and Political Activist - Big Journalism

Now that the WaPo knows he is illegal they have to fire him...right? When any small business finds out that they have hired an illegal alien they are required by law to fire the person otherwise they face stiff fines from the Feds. Somehow I don't see the DOJ fining the WaPo so long as they continue to support Obama.

The newly publicized life-story of award winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas seems to be one of those revelatory stories that tends to confirm some of the worst charges against liberals and the Old Media. The media sees no reason not to break the law, it employs people with political agendas, and all the while refuses to inform customers of the “news” that this is the case. As it happens, Vargas is an illegal immigrant in this country and has been for decades.

Vargas won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2007 coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings, he also made tongues wag recently with an exclusive interview with the reclusive founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. But his chief journalistic interest has been as a political reporter for the Washington Post.

Vargas tells ABC News that he found out that he had a fraudulent green card when he was a 16-year-old boy trying to apply for a California Driver’s license. The DMV told him his immigration card bought by his family in the Philippines was fake and “warned him not to return.”

Breakdown of the law number one was his family’s purposeful commission of a crime. Breakdown number two was a government agency assisting after the fact. The California DMV directly assisted an illegal immigrant and his entire family stay here as law breakers by telling a 16-year-old Vargas to run and hide from authorities.

Vargas took the DMV’s advice and began to train himself to speak without his native accent.

“I remember the very first instinct was, okay, that’s it, get rid of the accent… ‘Because I just thought to myself, you know, I couldn’t give anybody any reason to ever doubt that I’m an American,” Vargas said.

Notice how his “very first instinct” was to continue to break the law and compound that by engaging in subterfuge. Not to try and become a legal citizen.


Breakdown in law number three: Vargas enlisted the aid of some highly placed California public school officials to help him falsify documents so that he could get a fake Oregon Driver’s license to get his job with the Washington Post.

Jose Antonio Vargas: From Journalist to Illegal Immigrant and Political Activist - Big Journalism

Is It Any Wonder That Americans Are Turning Away From The Mainstream Media For Their News When Stories Like This Are Almost Commonplace?

The mainstream media has been losing a lot of its clout and revenue to alternative media recently. Newspapers especially have been hard hit as more consumers chose to get their news for free from the Internet, take for example the NY Times. The NY Times is hemorrhaging so much cash that it has had to seek concessions from the union at the Boston Globe, which is owned by the NY Times. When the union members recently rejected the proposed concessions management instituted a 23% pay cut across the board to stem losses. It now appears that the union and NY Times have reached a new agreement (http://tiny.cc/Globepaycut) but will these concessions save the mainstream media, probably not. The real issue is that the mainstream media has lost its way. More and more we are reading stories about the coziness of the press with our politicians take for instance the case of the Washington Post. As Mike Allen and Michael Calderone of Politico reported yesterday the Washington Post’s publisher, Katharine Weymouth, had to cancel plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home after details of the event became public. The Post, for a measily $25,000 per salon, was offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors. http://tiny.cc/ojBOH Now the question is did anyone from Congress or the Obama adminsitration agree to attend these “salons” and if so so why? Were it not for the alternative media would this story have even been covered?

Politicians at one time use to fear the press but not anymore. Scenes like this one at recent White House press conference are all too often a rarity. http://tiny.cc/hXgKu I have to commend both Thomas and Reid for not backing down. Be they liberals or conservatives we need a press corps that is going ask the tough questions and not coddle our politicians. Luckily for the politicans and the Post, and unfortuante for us, it’s a holiday weekend so this story is likely to be out of the press cycle by the time Americans tune back in on Monday morning.