Veteran Univision anchor Jorge Ramos continues to sell his brand of hyperpartisan advocacy disguised as journalism with evangelistic zeal wherever an award show or graduation will have him, and continues his personal jihad against President Donald Trump.
Watch as Ramos urges the 2018 graduating class at The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism (City University of New York) to engage in his peculiar brand of activism posing as journalism, driven by anti-Trump animus:
JORGE RAMOS, SENIOR NEWS ANCHOR, UNIVISION: During my lifetime, sometimes, the most important news in the world happened in far away places. In Vietnam, Afghanistan, in Iraq. But now you are lucky enough that the most important news is right here. It is about Donald Trump and how he is changing the most powerful country in the planet. So don't let him get away with it.
The naked call for political activism made his above-referenced exhortation the most notable portion of the commencement address. The address also featured the anchorman's trademark repeat and rehash of the same self-indulgent exercise we’ve seen for the past three and a half years, including Ramos’ seemingly endless milking of his staged 2015 ejection from a Donald Trump Iowa press conference.
For example, there is the continued deceptive twist of the Spanish “cuestionar” into “questioning” (with which he justified his heckling of Trump in Iowa), the continued advocacy for an essentially open border, and now a defense of his activist fellow traveler at CNN, Jim Acosta:
JORGE RAMOS: CNN’s Jim Acosta. He questioned the President at a press conference about a fake invasion of Central American refugees that was only in Trump’s head. The President has sent more than 5,000 soldiers to the border while the caravan of immigrants was still hundreds of miles away. I just came back from the border, believe me there is no invasion, there is no national emergency at the border, nothing is happening right there.
There is also the continued evolution of his “contrapoder” (opposite to power) rhetorical gimmick, seen here in his encouragement to students to do what they want at press conferences and to “disobey”:
JORGE RAMOS: The White House just implemented a new set of rules during press conferences. They don’t want you to ask follow-up questions…don’t follow that rule…if you wait for your turn, it is possible that you won’t ever ask that question. Remember when he ejected me from that press conference? If I had raised my hand and waited for my turn, I would be holding my hand right now. So wait for a pause, stand up and throw your question…when somebody is abusing his power, disobey. When they order you to sit down and keep quiet, disobey. When someone is making a racist statement, disobey.
In keeping with his continued pattern of pandering to the young (such as 'Dreamer' beneficiaries and anti-gun activists), Ramos gushes that this generation is the “first...that knows more than the previous one.”
JORGE RAMOS: So your generation is the first generation that knows much more than the previous one. The way you handle technology and your personal cell phones has given you an incredible advantage over us. Use it…in journalism, more important than apps and cell phones, is telling truth to power. During my lifetime, sometimes, the most important news in the world happened in far away places. In Vietnam, Afghanistan, in Iraq. But now you are lucky enough that the most important news is right here. It is about Donald Trump and how he is changing the most powerful country in the planet. So don't let him get away with it. Remember, there are no stupid questions. Congratulations!
Perhaps Ramos would be better served by reading, and then re-reading several times over, the portion of his address on the subject of journalistic credibility, given the staggering number of viewers he and his network have lost since 2016.
JORGE RAMOS: Report what you see, and give all points of view. But remember that, in journalism, we don’t get medals for credibility. Nor is there a great system that takes points away if you don’t report the truth. People…simply trust you, or they don’t. And once you’ve lost them, it is very difficult to get them back.
To carry on the way he does while saying things such as these, reveals a stunning lack of self-awareness. A good first step for Ramos would be to apply his own advice here, and give all points of view on all his newscasts and interview shows.
