The question hangs heavy over our domestic Spanish-language news media: "Why did Hispanics vote for Donald Trump?" As the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States continues to approach, our two leading networks took widely divergent approaches to this question.
Univision has chosen to treat the question as if it were an unsolvable enigma - not unlike a 17-sided Rubik's Cube delivered straight from the bowels of hell. Anchors and hosts alike have been utterly confounded as to the reasons why a vast number of Latinos would reject the network's messaging (not to mention the network itself). Anchor Jorge Ramos simply wrote off those Latino Trump voters as having "forgotten where they came from", rather than asking tough questions to which one does not know the (brutal) answer.
But Telemundo took a different approach. Rather than speculate as to the motives of Latino Trump voters, Telemundo found these voters...and spoke to them, and got some answers. From last Thursday's edition of Noticiero Telemundo:
ELIZABETH PEREZ, TEXAS TRUMP VOTER: I called for a vote for Donald Trump because of his plan to reduce taxes that will favor the creation of more jobs here in the United States.
VICTOR HUGO RODRIGUEZ, CORRESPONDENT, TELEMUNDO: She tells us her father lost his job following the implementation of NAFTA, which President-elect Donald Trump now wants to end. Like Elizabeth, many other Hispanics overlooked the threats of deportation and the construction of a wall, and trusted in his promises of jobs.
ELIZABETH PEREZ, TEXAS TRUMP VOTER: So then now, many of those companies can return here to the United States, because there is going to be a reduction in taxes.
When the interviewee gave an answer that did not fit with the network's established convential narratives, she was not demonized as a race-traitor or as having lost touch with her roots. Her response was taken at face-value and given its own weight and consideration.
Imagine that...a journalistic outfit that went into the field and performed actual journalism in lieu of activism.
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