Leila Ettachfini
"Yet the company says it supports "comprehensive immigration reform.""
Vice, November 22, 2019
With the ever-popular "humanitarian crisis" at the southern border that remains a subject of heated discussion among left-wing journalists, Ettachfini and several others have recently been uncovering the business partnerships between certain large companies and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the primarily-blamed culprit for the aforementioned crisis. In this case, Ettachfini attacks Dell, using their seemingly-contradictory statements as evidence for their hypocrisy in working with ICE. Using specific sources and pieces of evidence, the author outlines Dell's history with the immigration agency and utilizes a statement from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a kind of credible source. Thus, the audience is able to immediately recognize the major flaw in the author's attempt to establish credibility, as the SPLC is an organization with a controversial history and is still involved in major efforts to polarize social issues in America. Additionally, the author references some of her past articles and those of her peers in order to draw parallels between Dell's actions and those of other large corporations, specifically those dealing in IT and technology. Throughout the piece, the author's tone remains assertive and aggressive, as Ettachfini takes care to thoroughly detail each piece of relevant evidence, especially those that weaken the stability of Dell's defense. The author even includes an update at the end that describes the company's same-day response to the publication of her article. Through these, Ettachfini establishes her aggressive tone and methodical argumentation to her audience in an appealing attempt to gain traction as a pundit.
While it is interesting to see the uncovered dealings of large corporations and the government, it may be time for the author to ditch the subject. She has already written at least two more articles of the same nature rather recently, and none of them really make an impact on one's opinion of the company in question. Most understand businesses as what they are: institutions whose sole goal is to make money. Thus, most mature audiences would not be overly-surprised at the profitable dealings they have made with controversial government institutions, whether or not it affects their image and appeal to a specific group.
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