Sorting immigration facts, fiction
Can emotional media narratives about undocumented workers be tempered with data about the true economic impact of global immigration? Could scholars help journalists dispassionately analyze a red-hot political topic? These questions were discussed — sometimes soberly, sometimes passionately — during a conference on “The Futures of Immigration: Scholars and Journalists in Dialogue” held Friday at the Walter Lippmann House, home to the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. The afternoon conference brought together academics and working reporters to hash out immigration topics such as the law, economics, and the future impact of the new arrivals’ children on U.S. labor markets and culture. Richard Hornik, moderator of a discussion on “Immigration in a Time of Economic Crisis,” repeatedly challenged his panel concerning how professors and other academics could work with journalists to present a fuller portrait of immigration issues. But the former Time magazine editor and Harvard Business Review contributing editor may not have...