The Media Research Center has had its knives out for Univision’s Jorge Ramos for quite some time now, determined to silence him for being critical of Donald Trump. When Trump actually won the election, the MRC gloated.
In a Nov. 14 post, Jorge Bonilla cheered how “Smiling faces grew somber” on Univision’s election-night newscast as Trump won, complained that the network “amplified what it perceived to be inflammatory statements” by Trump (now that Trump is the MRC’s boy, Bonilla won’t concede that anything he was was actually inflammatory) and accused Ramos of having “staged his explusion from a Trump press conference in Iowa.” Bonilla ranted:
Now trapped in its own death spiral, Univision’s TV news division is quadrupling down on the identity politics that have left a sour taste in viewers’ mouths. Rather than examining whether its coverage of the 2016 election turned off viewers and potential voters, Univision decided to push fear as a response to Trump. Ramos’ promise to continue asking tough questions rings hollow because there was an astonishing lack of curiosity when it came to Hillary’s email scandal.
Univision News’ time is better spent in deep self-reflection and evaluation of its own journalistic practices. But it appears that the network has learned nothing.
This from an organization whose own “news” division served as Trump’s stenographer and offered critical coverage only of Hillary Clinton.
The next day, Bonilla targeted Ramos further under the headline “Jorge Ramos Lost All His Credibility And Learned Nothing,” in which he huffed:
Some time ago, Ramos admitted that he understood the risks to his credibility by taking such open stances. 2016 will be remembered as the year that Jorge Ramos gambled away his credibility. America, however, is about second chances and redemption. Here’s hoping that Ramos -as well as the rest of the media- acknowledges the scope and breadth of his failings and strives to hold all sides accountable going forward. This is certainly a much more constructive endeavor than the current lashing-out we’ve seen so far.
But, suddenly, Bonilla decided that Ramos was filled with credibility. Why? Because he said something Bonilla agrees with.
In a Nov. 28 post, Bonilla praised how Ramos finally got in line with right-wing talking points on the death of Fidel Castro:
Fairness compels us to memorialize what Al Punto did right…which in this case, was everything. Jorge Ramos broke sharply from the rest of the media by simply calling a dictator a dictator. The tone of the show was proper in that it was somber. Viewers got to see the reality of Fidel Castro through the voices of people whose lives were affected by the tyrant, and were given space to come to their own conclusions.
Oh, please. Bonilla doesn’t give a damn about “fairness” — he cares only about pushing a political view. The fact that Bonilla forgot completely about his attacks on Ramos when he echoed right-wing orthodoxy on Castro shows that all too clearly.
The next time Ramos says something Bonilla doesn’t like, the knives will be out again. That will have nothing to do with fairness either.