Predictably, Univision has also now joined the liberal media parade in defense of taxpayer funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and National Public Radio (NPR), with a totally one-sided report that is short on facts, as well as laden with omissions and laughable fallacies.
Most laughable? Jorge Ramos' heir apparent at the helm of the network's news anchor desk, Enrique Acevedo, uncritically framed the funding cuts to the CPB and NPR as endangering "access to independent and reliable information."
ENRIQUE ACEVEDO, ANCHOR, UNIVISION: For this media specialist, the cuts threaten access to independent and reliable information for a wide sector of the population.
CRISTINA LOPEZ, MEDIA SPECIALIST: If that federal support is removed from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in fact, it would end public content for these isolated rural populations, who if they are already affected by their geographic or socioeconomic condition, this would end up further isolating them.
ACEVEDO Moreover, public media outlets offer educational programming to nearly 7 out of 10 children between the ages of 2 and 8. A tool that helps them better prepare themselves for their school experience, especially among children with limited resources that don't have the opportunity to attend preschool.
JULIO RICARDO VARELA, JOURNALIST: I'm a child of Sesame Street, as well as "Plaza Sésamo", and that's the thing that...I grew up with that.
ACEVEDO: Journalist Julio Varela, who produces a program about the Latino community that is distributed on public radio, affirms that the space represents the only effective platform at this time through which he can share his work with the entire country.
In the report, Univision viewers are treated to a regurgitation of the standard media talking points on how these cuts could potentially harm rural populations that ostensibly depend on PBS and NPR for "independent and reliable" news programming, via a "media specialist" from an organization that goes entirely unnamed. It's worth noting that Acevedo doesn't think it necessary to disclose that his cited expert analyst works for an extreme-left organization founded by a chief ally and surrogate of Hillary Clinton.
No conservatives or conservative perspectives were included in the report to point out, as did Newsbusters Executive Editor Tim Graham, that PBS and NPR often market themselves as catering to a predominantly urban, liberal audience. Nor was there any mention of the fact that Sesame Street is perfectly capable of surviving in the media marketplace: witness the fact that it is largely funded by licensing deals on toys, video, as well as all other types of merchandise, and that the show now runs on HBO.
Acevedo ended his laughably one-sided report with an interview of liberal NPR host Julio Varela, and a lamentation that federally-funded public broadcasting is the only means on which Mr. Varela can "share his work with the rest of the country". I would posit that there is such a place, and it is called the free marketplace of ideas. Nothing personal against Mr. Varela, but OMB Director Mick Mulvaney is right in that we shouldn't ask "single moms and coal workers" to fund something that the marketplace can't sustain on its own outside of a few select liberal enclaves, whether left, right, or center.
Then again, there is beauty in watching a journalist advocating for more federal funding of left-leaning PBS and NPR, on a Clinton-supporting network that received its own crony relief not too long ago.
Below is a transcript of the full report as it aired on Noticiero Univision Edición Nocturna on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017.
ENRIQUE ACEVEDO, UNIVISION ANCHOR: Public radio and television in this country are in the midst of a fight for their lives. The budget introduced by the Trump White House proposes withdrawing funding -all federal funding- to, well, state media in the United States, which could mean the end of their programming. Among those, Sesame Street, and characters such as...Ronald Grump.
ACEVEDO: For years, the most emblematic program in U.S. public television used a character inspired by now-President Donald Trump. Ronald Grump, his Grump Tower, and even a version of "The Apprentice", starred in several episodes that were devoted to this character's excessive greed and ambition. Now, President Trump wants to end (government) financing of public media. The budget proposal sent to Congress looks to cut $450 million in resources from the country's public radio and television stations, something that could mean the end of most non-commercial programming in the United States.
CRISTINA LOPEZ, MEDIA SPECIALIST: From an electoral point of view, a vast amount of the cuts to services that they are doing, in the end, will affect many of the voters that placed their trust in this administration...
ACEVEDO: For this media specialist, the cuts threaten access to independent and reliable information for a wide sector of the population.LOPEZ: If that federal support is removed from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in fact, it would end public content for these isolated rural populations, who if they are already affected by their geographic or socioeconomic condition, this would end up further isolating them.
ACEVEDO: Moreover, public media outlets offer educational programming to nearly 7 out of 10 children between the ages of 2 and 8. A tool that helps them better prepare themselves for their school experience, especially among children with limited resources that don't have the opportunity to attend preschool.
JULIO RICARDO VARELA, JOURNALIST: I'm a child of Sesame Street, as well as "Plaza Sésamo", and that's the thing that...I grew up with that.
ACEVEDO: Journalist Julio Varela, who produces a program about the Latino community that is distributed on public radio, affirms that the space represents the only effective platform at this time through which he can share his work with the entire country.
