Comment by thorfish

I heard a really outrageous example of that the other day. They were doing a piece on migrants from Africa traveling to Europe. The NPR reporter brought on a British professor of international studies for an interview. The professor says, "There is a perception that immigrants hurt wages. But lots of studies now show that is not true." This statement went completely undisputed, it was reported as fact. No person of an opposing viewpoint was interviewed. I have looked at some of those studies. Lots of fancy math - but math only reflects the assumptions you put in. One paper I read stated as one of its assumptions that economic growth would be proportional to the number of migrants, and then based on that assumption proved that immigration would not hurt wages! It is pure intellectual dishonesty to cite that result out of context as proof that migration will not hurt wages, since the assumptions on which the paper is based are completely unproven.