How a CPR survey of 400 Coloradans on illegal immigration became “statewide opinion”

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

CPR’s media malpractice

To say that CPR’s coverage leans left is to say that the sky is blue.

The CPR article linked first below didn’t just lean left, however. It was so noteworthy for getting some basics so wrong that it merits the title media malpractice.

There was a recent article by CPR which questioned (I think you could probably go as far as to use the verb “downplayed”) claims by ICE that their agents are facing more and more assaults and threats. That article is linked second below for your perusal.

This more recent article, the one linked first below and by a different reporter, follows that earlier effort thematically by focusing largely on what they (the reporters and those interviewed) see as excesses by ICE. It’s right there in the headline–”masked men”.

If that were all, it would be just another example of CPR’s leftward slant. It isn’t. It misrepresents what they’re offering.

One of the subheadings in the article is “What Coloradans are Saying About Immigration”, below which you’ll see a few sample quotes they took from a survey which CPR participated in.

Quoting the story with the links intact (note in particular the link to their voluntary survey):

“In the survey circulated by Colorado newsrooms, including CPR News, a majority of the nearly 400 respondents said that, even if they supported some of the president’s stated goals, they opposed some of the immigration enforcement tactics currently being used by federal agents. Specifically, Coloradans take issue with federal agents violating due process and not focusing on deporting the ‘worst of the worst’ criminals.”

Before we look at the map giving the geographic distribution of survey respondents, I want you to note that “nearly 400” respondents took the time to do the survey. 400 out of roughly 6 million. 0.007% of the people in this state are what CPR News feels is representative of feelings on immigration.

It gets worse when you see where the respondents were living. Screenshot 1 is from the article and shows just how well the survey respondents (don’t) represent Colorado.

Exactly. This is not what Coloradans think This is what the people along the Front Range and other liberal enclaves think (see for example where Durango is brighter than a baboon’s rear end). A few conservatives did the survey,** a couple are quoted in the article, but it’s a trickle against the river of comment by those that don’t like what ICE is doing.

Not too far from that in the article, you’ll see the following. Quoting with link intact: “Meanwhile, a national Gallup poll released this summer found that only 30 percent of Americans say immigration should be reduced, a position that has shrunk by fifteen points since last year. But the support for staunching immigration largely falls along party lines, with the poll finding ‘Republicans are the only group still showing at least plurality support for reducing immigration.’”

This is a repeat of a couple things I’ve noted before. It’s a repeat of the lefty media conflating LEGAL immigration with ILLEGAL immigration, lumping them together. It’s also a variant of the smear I noted in KUNC’s reporting, namely that Republicans don’t like immigrants and want to reduce their number.

A quick look at the Gallup poll that the reporter linked to above makes the issue plainer. The questions put to respondents by Gallup make no distinction between legal and illegal immigration. It’s not too hard to imagine a respondent hearing immigration and thinking about the hordes of people in recent memory trying to get into the country illegally. Yes, of course they’d have an issue with that, though they not have an issue with a neighbor who came here legally.

Lastly, I’d point you to the part below the subheading “How Colorado leaders are responding to federal actions”. Which leaders? Well, if you’d hoped for a Republican, I’m sorry to disappoint you. The actions highlighted are those of Weiser and Crow, both Democrats and both vocal opponents of the current administration’s policy on immigration.

These things point to reporting so obviously tilted as to rise above the level of the usual leftward slant of CPR’s day to day coverage.

I normally try to skirt assuming another’s motive, but I really struggle with this one. The unfairness/dishonesty of the coverage compound to the point that it becomes hard to imagine how one could arrive at this without having a motive. It’s possible, it’s just difficult to imagine; it’s a level of laziness that’s hard to picture.

I’d like to point out something else. Frequently in discussions of media bias and what I term “journalistic exceptionalism”, journalists and others continually point to the fact that stories and sources are rigorously checked, and that an editor passes over whatever a reporter produces.

Remember that this article passed an editor. This article is a product of that process.

**And you should be doing this too if you see opportunities. FORCE them to ignore your voice, don’t hand it to them.

https://www.cpr.org/2025/10/24/coloradans-react-to-immigration-policies

https://www.cpr.org/2025/10/02/ice-agent-assault-claims-data-lacking

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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