The aftermath of Univision/Fusion anchor Jorge Ramos’ expulsion from (and prompt return to) Donald Trump’s Iowa press conference played out exactly as I predicted. Aided and abetted by his mainstream media comrades, Ramos has sought to cast himself as a brave resistor to injustice á la Rosa Parks, and his post-Trump defenses seek to portray him as a tough truth-teller willing to stand up to tyrants. His actions, however, betray the lofty intent of his words.
A series of talking points have emerged and congealed post-Trump, namely:
- “I’m just a journalist asking questions”
- “We have a duty to denounce racism, injustice, corruption, public lies...”
- “I’m no different than Murrow, Cronkite, Woodward and Bernstein…”
But facts are inconvenient. And the fact is that Ramos only does these things when in service of Univision's broader political and business agenda.
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By now, we’ve thoroughly debunked the notion that Ramos attended that press conference to ask questions, so we won’t belabor the point here. It bears noting, though, that he did the same thing when seeking to pressure House Speaker John Boehner into passing the Senate’s Gang of Eight immigration bill. If there is video of Ramos hijacking an Obama White House press conference and demanding answers for not delivering on his amnesty promises, I sure haven’t seen it.
It should also be noted that Ramos’ interest in denouncing “corruption” and “public lies” seems to stop at the southern border. His Twitter timeline (which I peruse unabated despite his brave, brave blocking) is chock-full of coverage of scandals such as:
- Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto’s “white house”
- The Mexican government’s deception regarding its role in the horrific disappearance of the Ayotzinapa 43
- The scandal which resulted in the resignation of Guatemalan president Otto Pérez Molina
There is no disputing that all of the above merit coverage as issues that are relevant both to our hemisphere and to vast percentages of Univision’s audience.
But one does not see the same desire to “denounce”, however, with regard to “public lies” and “corruption” originating domestically, from Democrats. There is hardly any such journalistic curiosity when it comes to the “public lies” in response to allegations that Hillary Clinton illegally (undocumentedly?) sent and received classified information from an unauthorized home server while serving as Secretary of State.
There has been no such desire to denounce corruption when the Internal Revenue Service targeted non-profit applications of groups that appeared to dissent from the Obama administration, or in examining the EPA’s role in the Animas River disaster (which would be a useful start before cheerleading government intervention in the name of “doing something” regarding global warming).
Some will say that Ramos held Obama to account for failing to deliver comprehensive immigration reform within his first year as promised. But this accounting was subsequently whitewashed by his cheerleading of the illegal DACA and DAPA executive actions.
This is why Jorge Ramos’ laughable critique of Bill O’Reilly rings so hollow, and why the “reporter asking questions” shtick has worn so thin. For all the tough talk, Ramos has essentially turned himself into the employee of a Democratic crony corporation with a clear, present, and personal political and business agenda.
Perhaps this is the reason why one big name is missing from Ramos’ self-congratulatory comparisons to Murrow, Cronkite, Woodward and Bernstein: Oriana Fallaci. Fallaci asked tough questions of everyone at all times regardless of affiliation or circumstance - and not just when it suited an agenda.
When Fallaci interviewed the Ayatollah Khomeini she threw off her chador, signaling that she was going to speak truth to power on her own terms. Jorge Ramos refuses, unlike his hero Fallaci, to remove his chador in the face of power. His actions betray his lofty rhetoric when covering Democrats or allies of the network’s leftist-aligned agenda.
