Univision can't contain itself from broadcasting its preferred resolution of Puerto Rico's going on 120-year-old territorial status - not even when reporting on the filing of a bill that would correct the still festering historic anomaly and make Puerto Rico the 51st state of the Union.
Watch as the network's morning Despierta América anchor Satcha Pretto reports on the June 27 filing of a Republican majority-sponsored admission bill. Although the anchor says one thing, the graphics say another:
SATCHA PRETTO, NEWS ANCHOR, UNIVISION: Puerto Rico begins the process to, perhaps, become the 51st state of the Union. With support from 14 Democrats and 20 Republicans, the island’s Resident Commissioner in the House of Representatives Jennifer González-Colón, filed the bill that would initiate the transition process and change the territory’s status by 2021. The bill proposes the creation of a bipartisan committee in order to identify which statutes need to be modified or abolished, and recommend economic measures to solve the Puerto Rican debt.
Pretto's report was clean albeit brief. But the graphics department did everything it could to betray the network's preference for Puerto Rico, which is independence from the United States. In fact, there were not one but two graphics flashing "independence". First, during Pretto's introduction of the story, and then midway through the report (which is obscured by the subtitles but shown below) featuring the words "Bipartisan Bill Seeks Independence from U.S.").
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Par for the course for Univision, which has had a long habit of showcasing Puerto Rican separatists like Congressman Luis Gutiérrez, along with anchor Jorge Ramos giving dozens of minutes of airtime to a convicted terrorist. Univision's treatment of a statehood status resolution that won in Puerto Rico with 97% of the vote and secures the civil rights of 3.4 million Americans does very little in service of the truth.
