Lousy biz media coverage of H-1B visa abuse

Don Tennant of ITBusinessEdge writes in response to complaints he’s received about the lack of business media coverage in regard to abuse of the H-1B visa by U.S. companies and their employees.

Tennant writes, “I couldn’t find a single U.S. media outlet that covered the story. I found three UK sites that covered it – Computerworld UK (a blog post that partially plagiarized the Times of India story), ComputerWeekly (citing the Times of India story) and Information Age. Palmer’s attorney filed the lawsuit on Feb. 23, but based on my search, not only did the business/trade press in this country (including IT Business Edge) fail to cover it, but it was overlooked by the mainstream press, as well. There was a news service for attorneys and a law blog that wrote about it, but that was the extent of any U.S. coverage that I could find.

“So why is that the case? Some people insist it all has to do with some massive corporate/media conspiracy to import cheap labor to maximize profits, and that covering stories about companies like Infosys engaging in visa and tax fraud is either overtly or covertly prohibited for fear of damaging business.

“I’ve been in this line of work for a long time, and I can tell you that’s simply preposterous. It’s just not the way things work. Journalists may not be your favorite people, but they’re not mindless, manipulated puppets tasked with mindlessly manipulating the public. By nature they’re aggressive, inquisitive and skeptical, and they see their calling as a noble one. Corporate interests aren’t above trying to manipulate the press, but I assure you that any such attempt fires journalists up to be that much more aggressive.”

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