Three months into the year, we may have reached peak 2017. Univision, after years of waging open war on Republicans, is now openly complaining about lack of access to congressional Republicans.
Most of the on-the-record whining comes from Edición Nocturna (Univision's late-night newscast) co-anchor Enrique Acevedo, who has this to say to Politico's Hadas Gold:
"It’s happened more since the inauguration. It’s harder to get access to Republicans than it is to get access to Democrats and I understand why that is. Republicans think they have more to lose going on Univision,” Acevedo said, citing his attempts to get Republican senators like Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on the air. “If we get an answer, which is an exception, the answer is: 'It’s a busy week, they’re not doing media,' and then we see them on Fox or CNN.”
Gold's article has triggered a lot of meta media coverage, meaning: media covering its favorite topic - media. As one pithy observer put it, the story is mostly about Acevedo's inability to get a story. There are several reasons as to why SOME (not all) Univision talent is having difficulty engaging Republicans on the air in D.C., whether Miami-based or otherwise. As far as Acevedo goes, this tweet below indicates that it's really quite simple:
Given that "climate change deniers" - the label cast upon those who are skeptical of the theory that climate change is mostly caused by humans - is also how some describe a good bit of the Republican congressional majority: why would anyone make time to grant an interview to someone whose opening position is that they have no legitimate place in government to begin with?
Why talk to someone who thinks Aurora, Newtown, and Oklahoma City were carried out by "white men from the extreme right", and who thinks that ISIS (aka, the Islamic State) is not inspired by Islam or the Koran? It appears, then, that numerous congressional Republicans were already on to Acevedo - not unlike what has also happened in relation to his senior activist colleague at the network's news anchor desk, Jorge Ramos.
The dirty little secret is that Republicans DO talk to Univision D.C. talent...just not to Acevedo, who arrived in the nation's capital two months ago on a much-ballyhooed mission to cover Trump's first 100 days in office. Instead, they talk to veteran correspondent Lourdes Meluzá, correspodent Pablo Gato or weekend correspondent Claudia Uceda. For crying out loud, the Trump White House talks all the time to Univision White House correspondent Janet Rodríguez, who often shows reaction video of Special Assistant to the President Helen Aguirre-Ferré, herself a former Univision colleague who Acevedo also managed to smear just a few weeks ago.
In the Politico piece, Acevedo goes on to bemoan Univision's categorization as "ethnic media" and denounces the "wall built around Univision and our audience". But that wall, contrary to what Univision and Acevedo would have you believe, was built way before 2015 and the Trump phenomenon. Jorge Ramos himself went on C-SPAN back in 2010, and said that Republicans had to "make peace with Latinos" on immigration as well as other issues he did not name.
JORGE RAMOS, ANCHOR, UNIVISION/FUSION: If the Republican Party doesn't make peace with Latinos on immigration first and then on other issues, they're going to lose them and they're going to lose - they're going to lose the power for many, many generations from now.
Of course, there is also Univision's ugly history with Senator Marco Rubio, going as far back as 2011, and as recent as the Jorge Ramos column tarring Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz as race-trators who deserved to lose their primaries. Then there's the 2016 presidential campaign, with all its crass demonization of Donald Trump.
What this article makes clear is that Univision's standing as the supposed gatekeeper to the U.S. Hispanic community is drawing to a close. The Clinton megadonor-owned network has been exposed as little more than a Democratic crony special interest with a news division- as evidenced by the Obama administration's unprecedented grant of an FCC foreign-ownership rule change in the network's favor, while in the dead of the transition.
Univision's viewers, who are always a target of Univision's political communications, deserve better - as do the talent and crew at all the local affiliates who are continually embarrassed by the constant preening of some of their national anchors.
