Search Results for: AJC

A former reporter at the liberal Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper known for multiple, unapologetic accuracy blunders is apparently now a “Communications Associate” at the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA). GMA is the powerful lobbying entity for Georgia’s more than five hundred cities and towns. We hear the job change was effective January 1, 2021.

We were happy to take the time to post two requests for correction sent to the AJC editors last year stories created by Coyne and approved by her editors. Maybe it paid off?

Last February Coyne reported on a silly, but simple bill from anti-enforcement Democrats (apologies for the repetition) in the Georgia House that was virtue signaling against use of the term “illegal alien” (also “alien” and “illegal”) that we were proud to have helped install in multiple state laws. Through Coyne, the AJC reported that under the legislation, “illegal alien” would be replaced with the term “unauthorized immigrant”. One problem with the story was that “unauthorized immigrant” was not anywhere in the text of the bill. Apparently Coyne wished it or just made it up. Her yarn left out the changes to the other icky words – “illegal” and “alien.”

As we noted in our post last year (AJC inventing “facts” on state legislation again – HB960 and “illegal alien”), as so often happens, “Georgia’s flagship newspaper” was not credible or compelling much less complete, which is kind of their, you know…slogan.

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In November 2020, another Amanda Coyne story on the application process for poll workers in Gwinnett caught our eye. Coyne and her editors managed to muck it up by telling readers that the I-9 form is a “tax form.” It’s not.

From our Immigration Politics GA post then (AJC gets it wrong again: Correction should not be expected on Form I-9 yarn)

The yarn, headlined “Application process stymies 200 + plus would-be poll workers in Gwinnett” explains at length that people who wanted to work at Gwinnett County polls have not been contacted after completing an application. The Gwinnett application is online and requires an easy and quick registration if you want to see it.

From the liberal AJC via reporter Amanda Coyne:

“Gwinnett County’s human resources department requires potential poll workers to submit an I-9 form before their application is moved over to the elections department. The I-9 is a tax form that allows the county to pay poll workers. Applicants are supposed to get an automated email after submitting their application with instructions on how to submit the tax form, country spokesman Joe Sorenson said. Nothing in the job posting or application indicates the I-9 is necessary to move forward.”

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the people who administer the I-9 form describe it as the ‘employment verification’ form that it has been since 1986.

From the USCIS I-9 website:

Use Form I-9 to verify the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the United States. All U.S. employers must properly complete Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. This includes citizens and noncitizens. Both employees and employers (or authorized representatives of the employer) must complete the form.”

Alas, as is usually the case with the agenda-driven editors at the AJC, they did not run a notice of correction as requested. But after our post, they did change the online copy to reflect the actual purpose of the I-9 form, but again, as usual, there was no note of the correction. This is a near daily practice for the AJC staff for whom the internet seems to mean never having to say you’re sorry…

We see from Linkedin that Amanda Coyne, the new communications associate at GMA, was editor-in-chief of University of South Carolina’s The Daily Gamecock and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in women’s and gender studies.

Good luck with that, GMA.

An Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter with a growing reputation for blundering inaccuracies has been allowed to strike again by AJC editors.

Amanda Coyne has a news report in the October 30, 2020 print version of what is often referred to as Georgia’s “flagship newspaper” in which she tells readers that the I-9 employment and identity verification form is a “tax form.” It isn’t.

The yarn, headlined “Application process stymies 200 + plus would-be poll workers in Gwinnett” explains at length that people who wanted to work at Gwinnett County polls have not been contacted after completing an application. The Gwinnett application is online and requires an easy and quick registration if you want to see it.

From the liberal AJC via reporter Amanda Coyne:

Gwinnett County’s human resources department requires potential poll workers to submit an I-9 form before their application is moved over to the elections department. The I-9 is a tax form that allows the county to pay poll workers. Applicants are supposed to get an automated email after submitting their application with instructions on how to submit the tax form, country spokesman Joe Sorenson said. Nothing in the job posting or application indicates the I-9 is necessary to move forward.”

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the people who administer the I-9 form describe it as the ‘employment verification’ form that it has been since 1986.

From the USCIS I-9 website:

Use Form I-9 to verify the identity and employment authorization of individuals hired for employment in the United States. All U.S. employers must properly complete Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. This includes citizens and noncitizens. Both employees and employers (or authorized representatives of the employer) must complete the form.”

Along with a request for correction sent to editors, Coyne was noted here (AJC inventing “facts” on state legislation again – HB960 and “illegal alien”) in February when her editors allowed her to report on legislation introduced by anti-enforcement Democrats in the Georgia Capitol aimed at removing the term “illegal alien” from state law. She apparently didn’t read the bill, invented language that was not there and as usual, to our knowledge (I asked several times via Twitter and email), the AJC never ran a correction.

We don’t think Coyne or her editors spend much time on research.

The slogan for the AJC is “compelling, credible and complete.” It isn’t.

 **UPDATED WITH AJC CORRECTION

Note, this piece was originally posted on the Dustin Inman Society blog.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution strikes again. Twice. In less than forty-eight hours.

After constantly correcting them – for sixteen years – on the fact that being pro-enforcement on immigration doesn’t qualify anyone, including me, as “anti-immigrant” or “anti-immigration” – and that I am neither – they have again labeled me as “anti-immigrant” And “anti-immigration.” Did I mention it was twice in less than forty-eight hours?

Oh, and BTW: They seem to not approve of the concept of nationalism. 

The morning after my late-night phone call/voice mail to an AJC reporter twenty minutes after his story on a Gwinnett County 287(g) panel discussion in which I participated hit the internet, the AJC changed their “anti-immigrant” description of me in the online version of the story to “anti-undocumented immigrant…” Then, in the same story for the next day’s print version ran a photo of me with the caption describing me as “a controversial anti-immigration activist.”

Without exaggeration, by phone, email and letters, I have told these people about fifty times that I fight for enforcement of immigration and employment laws and for sanity in immigration levels. That my adopted sister is an immigrant.  As are many donors and some members of the board of the Dustin Inman Society, which I founded in 2005.

The most recent example is a letter to the editor that was sent – and published – last June in response to another inaccurate and libelous depiction of yours truly as “anti-immigration” that was also changed after I complained:

“A recent column by the AJC’s Bill Torpy on the front of the Metro section falsely referred to me as an “anti-immigration activist.” The widely known truth is that for the last 15 years I have proudly fought for sanity in immigration and enforcement of American immigration laws. That effort is easily and succinctly described as “pro-enforcement.”

For the record – yet again – I am not “anti-immigration” any more than the folks at Mothers Against Drunk Driving are “anti-driving.” Neither is my adopted sister, who is an immigrant.

The reporters and leadership of the Georgia’s largest newspaper should be regarded as an organ of, and for, the illegal alien lobby from here on. I have asked for another correction and retraction.

The editor of the AJC is Kevin Riley. Despite the fact that the shrinking AJC has no public editor, neither he or most of his editors respond to my emails or phone calls. *Notable exception: Editorial Editor Andre Jackson, who I believe to be an honorable journalist in every sense of the word. Andre Jackson is the only employee I know at the AJC that I trust.

The story is too long to tell at one time here, so only a little expansion for now.

On a panel discussion in Gwinnett County focused on 287(g) an AJC reporter filed this story late on the same night as the event ( again, they don’t seem to like the self-description of “proud American nationalist” at all). The 1996 federal tool, 287(g) is designed to locate illegal aliens who land in local jails. Note that the anti-287(g) participants (some who dropped out) are referred to as “immigrant advocate groups.”

In the first try, I am described in this paragraph with

“King spoke first and audience members opposed to 287(g) greeted him with signs filled with his previous anti-immigrant rhetoric. His opening statement riled them further.”

After my phone call complaint, it was changed to:

“King spoke first and audience members opposed to 287(g) greeted him with signs filled with his past comments regarding undocumented immigrants. His opening statement riled them further.”

In the print version (that is also sent out electronically) of the same story that ran on August 2, the AJC editors reversed the reporter’s previous correction and inserted a photo of me with the caption:

“D.A. King, a controversial anti-immigration activist, represented the sheriff’s office on a panel discussion of the 287(g) program.” —  All italic emphasis mine.

Image: AJC

Not only is the “anti-immigration” activist description wrong. but the AJC has invented out of thin air the notion that I was somehow representing the sheriff’s office. I would have been very proud to do that, but I was asked to speak on 287(g) as president of the Dustin Inman Society.

So, questions for the AJC team – if I was supposedly representing the sheriff, who were the three anti-enforcement characters representing? How did it happen that only D.A. King was supposedly representing somebody else in your story?

–>*Update: Too funny: On Wednesday, August 7 on page 2. the AJC corrected the whole cloth fabrication that I was somehow on the panel as a representative of the Sheriff, here. But the “credible”, “compelling”, “complete” coverage AJC editor Kevin Riley constantly tries to sell on radio ads never corrected the fake news that I am an “anti-immigration activist” – while they portrayed the anti-enforcement mob as “immigrant advocates.”

Note to the propagandists at the AJC: Even the New York Times has made that correction on my motivation.

 

Image: AJC

The young AJC reporter asked me one or two questions – and that was clearly an after-thought formality on his way out the door. His lead query to me?

“Do you think you inflamed this event? …by being here, I mean.”

Contact info for the AJC leadership here. The columns the AJC editorial page team has published from me listed here. Did they inflame anyone by printing them?

I have sent them a letter to the editor about the fact they use the disgraced SPLC as an arbiter of “hate…” I will post it tomorrow if they don’t run it.

*Update: An edited and shortened version of my letter finally ran. Many thanks to Mr. Andre Jackson.

Pee-uuuu.

“smear

There is a difference between immigrants and illegal aliens. Opposition to illegal immigration is not “anti-immigrant” (for the 10000th time).

Many anti-enforcement race-hustlers, including the SPLC, George Chidi and GALEO’s Jerry Gonzalez are again spreading various versions of the lie that in 2007 I went to Covington, Ga. and told a room full of curious people that immigrants are here to “blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you, and me.”

This is an intentional lie and uses the common practice of the left of redefining the English language, and taking a few words out of context to wield as a smear weapon to silence pro-enforcement advocates.  

At a 2007 GOP meeting where I was invited to speak on illegal immigration I was in a segment of my presentation that mentioned what the MSM or the illegal alien lobby will never allow the public to know: Individuals from countries with known ties to terrorism are coming over our borders illegally. It was true then and it is true now. Here is a quick link from 2016.

Here is one from 2021.

To be clear for the slow: I am/was saying that some illegal aliens – both illegal border crossers and visa violation or overstays – come from terrorist countries and they are not all here to work on the cheap. I am/was not talking about legal immigrants (although some could be terrorists). The leftist media and the corporate-funded illegal alien lobby constantly try to blur the line between illegal aliens and immigrants. 

I had recently returned from one of my many trips to the Arizona/Mexico border where Border Patrol Agents confirmed that fact for us.

A reporter from the local newspaper was present for my speech and wrote the meeting up. Here is a part of his story in which he quotes me:

“The porous border with Mexico is especially dangerous, he added, saying that it has been an entrance point for people from countries with known ties to terrorism.

“They’re not here to mow your lawn — they’re here to blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you, and me,” he said.

To prove his point, he flaunted two authentic Mexican government-issued photo ID cards — called matriculas consulares — that he said he was able to get using fake Mexican birth certificates. One of them lists his name; the other is under the name “Al Qada Gonzalez.” ( Note from D.A. – no, mine, like many, are fake)Current enforcement is so lax, he said, that the cards can be used in some states to obtain valid drivers licenses and board airplanes.

Georgia, which has seen a large influx of illegal immigration in recent years, should also be prepared to become a new front for problems with employment and crime that have been seen in border states, he said.”

The entire report can seen here – I pasted it into my blog.

I also have had a congressional report on the terrorost/border angle plainly posted on the DIS homepage since it was issued in 2006.

“Members of Hezbollah have already entered the United States across the Southwest border”. “A Line In the Sand: Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border” U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security report, 2006.

This is not the first time this fabrication has come up. Several months after the Covington speech, GALEO’s Jerry Gonzalez began his campaign to convince people I made the statement about “immigrants.” That lie was passed on by the AJC’s Jim Galloway in his Political Insider blog – using the term “reportedly.” When I saw it, I called Galloway and explained GALEO’s intent to create fake news, sent him the Covington news report reflecting what I actually said and asked him to run a correction and explanation of the out-of-context smear he had helped perpetuate.

I never heard another word about it from Jim Galloway and it was never corrected to my knowledge.

This is just one example of how the media helps pass on lies about honest Americans who fight for immigration enforcement and secure borders. I have to spend time correcting lies and defending my reputation because the “watchdog media” is anything but. *UPDATE, July, 2021: Happily, Galloway has retired from the liberal AJC. Sadly, his replacements are worse on this.

Below, a notorious Democrat politician explains the “wrap up smear.” Youtube

• 

  12,290,905: The total number of deportations during Bill Clinton’s presidency

• 10,328,850: The total number of deportations during George W. Bush’s presidency

• 5,281,115: The total number of deportations during Barack Obama’s presidency

From:

Mexican-U.S. border: A look at the migrant caravan by the numbers

Atlanta Journal Constitution, November 26, 2018 which can be read in full here.