BROOKE GLADSTONE:
And now for a couple of letters pertaining to Bob's interview last week with CNN TV staple, Lou Dobbs. Joe Felice of Brooklyn writes, "I don't even agree with Lou on immigration, or watch his show, but he defended himself splendidly in what felt a lot like a cross examination. The media is full of dogmatic blowhards sounding off on the headlines with zero expertise and total predictability. In that context, Dobbs' comparative smarts and his propensity for positions across the political spectrum make him a net asset."

And this from Julie Pfeffer: "Am I the only one who noticed the extreme irony of the juxtaposition of two segments aired in today's episode? First you played a largely respectful interview with Lou Dobbs, whose inflammatory and populist broadcasts are attracting an ever widening audience as they air on one of the most ubiquitous cable TV channels in the United States. Immediately thereafter, you featured the introduction of cable channel Al Jazeera English, focusing for nearly the entire piece on the fact that Al Jazeera Arabic's occasionally inflammatory and populist broadcasts have kept the new channel from receiving a single cable distribution agreement in the United States.

If the U.S. public can be trusted to watch Lou Dobbs and his nativist hate speech, why can't we see Al Jazeera English, which is far less polemical?"

Keep your comments coming to onthemedia@wync.org, and please don't forget to tell us where you live and how to pronounce your name.