Top U.S. Spanish-language television networks Univision and Telemundo virtually buried the Republican convention speeches by the parents of victims of violent crimes committed by people who are living in the country illegally, devoting less than a minute to the subject.
However, when it came to the Democratic convention speech by Muslim lawyer Khizr Khan attacking Donald Trump and its aftermath, those same networks have had a field day, devoting 12 minutes of coverage (720 seconds) in their national morning and evening news programming.
Specifically, during the Republican National Convention on July 18 and 19, the speeches by Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden, and Jamiel Shaw, whose children were killed by people with no right to be in the country, received all of 55 seconds of attention on Univision and Telemundo.
The speeches by these victims’ parents were also irresponsibly labelled by both Univision and Telemundo as “anti-immigrant.” On Univision’s sister network, Fusion, anchor-activist Jorge Ramos actually had the gall to lecture grieving father Jamiel Shaw, who since his son's death has worked to end sanctuary city policies and promote common sense cooperation between federal and local law enforcement authorities that could prevent such tragedies.
The highly emotional Republican convention speech by Patricia Smith, the bereaved mom of Sean Smith, who was killed as a result of the Clinton State Department security debacle at Benghazi in 2012, also practically didn’t even register, with only a 20-second passing reference to it on Univision and no mention whatsoever by Telemundo.
However, Muslim immigration lawyer Khizr Khan’s Democratic National Convention lecturing of Donald Trump about the U.S. Constitution and its aftermath received constant, reliably favorable coverage by both Univision and Telemundo, totaling 12 minutes between July 28 and August 1.
This checkered record of convention coverage by Univision and Telemundo demonstrates yet again the bias that frequently characterizes the news on both networks.
