Jorge Ramos, a prime anchor at Spanish-language Univision, criticized the community in his weekly column on Saturday for its softball interview with Donald Trump earlier this month.
Ramos famous that the Mar-a-Lago sit-down with the indicted former president “put doubtful the independence of our information division, and created discomfort and uncertainty inside the newsroom.”
“Our job as journalist is to query these in energy. That’s what reporters do,” he wrote on his website, detailing the instances he had confronted Trump about his insurance policies and feedback.
“We can not normalize habits that threatens democracy and the Hispanic group, or provide Trump an open microphone to broadcast his falsehoods and conspiracy theories. We should query and fact-check every little thing he says and does,” he wrote.
“That’s why it is vitally harmful to fail to confront Trump. And that’s why it’s our ethical obligation to confront him each time there’s a journalistic alternative to do it. However I perceive that not everybody agrees, and I open the talk right here.”
Univision defended its interview—which sparked a boycott name from actor and comic John Leguizamo—by saying its “information technique is one that’s non-partisan and goal.”
“We serve our viewers by being welcoming of competing points, concepts, candidates and events,” CEO Wade Davis wrote in a memo to staffers final week.
Ramos wrote that he was not suggesting that journalists grow to be partisan, and famous that he additionally questioned Barack Obama and Joe Biden about their very own insurance policies.
“In fact we must always not take sides, and we’re obliged to broadcast the messages of all candidates within the 2024 presidential election. However on the similar time we can not give up our duty to ask laborious and exact questions,” he wrote.
“Democracy is one thing that should be defended day by day. And for journalists, the way in which to try this is to ask questions. Even when it hurts. Even when it makes somebody uncomfortable. Silence nearly by no means makes for good journalism.”
He signed off with a suggestion that he would face no repercussions for slamming his employer:
“For 39 years Univision has allowed me to report with absolute independence and freedom—and even to write down columns like this one—and I’ll all the time be very grateful. That’s why I left Mexico and got here to the US.”
