It happened again. As the inauguration of Donald Trump approached, Univision-Fusion journoactivist Jorge Ramos penned a screed intended to lay down a marker of resistance. But it reveals more.
Per the custom, Ramos' op-ed ran first in Mexico City's Reforma, then in Univision. Per my custom, I waited until the piece was translated into English because I refuse to do Fusion's work. The column, written after Trump's preinaugural press conference at the Trump Tower, is one giant preen intended to (a) link the exchange between Trump and CNN's Jim Acosta with Ramos'own manufactured eviction from the Trump press conference in Iowa.
It happened again: During a recent news conference, Donald Trump attacked a journalist who was trying to ask a question. In a matter of days, Trump will become the nation’s 45th president. But he still doesn’t seem to understand that we journalists don’t answer to him.
During the news conference in New York, Jim Acosta, a correspondent from CNN, tried to ask Trump a question about the controversial intelligence report that Trump received, apparently outlining Russia’s alleged interference in last year’s presidential campaign. The president-elect didn’t like how the media had covered the issue, particularly at CNN, so he wouldn’t even allow Acosta to voice his question.
The main difference between Ramos and Acosta, of course, is that Acosta asked actual questions. Ramos, on the other hand, shouted one declarative statement after another before getting tossed. Now, as he did after Iowa, Ramos proceeds to perform a disservice to journalists and journalism by wrongfully conflating the right to ask questions with a manufactured right to heckle.
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Ramos' continued preening undermines his ongoing comparisons of Trump with Latin American strongmen such as Hugo Chávez, as did his silence when journalists suffered actual abuses at the hands of the government. As I said back in October of 2015:
When James Rosen (Fox News) named by theJustice Department as a criminal co-conspirator in a 2010 espionage case, the FBI obtained a warrant to seize his e-mail and phone records, as well as track his movements to and from the State Department. There was not even a peep from Ramos, neither on his website nor his prolific Twitter account.
News of the AP wiretapping scandal garnered two cursory tweets, but no denunciation or outrage other than framing the story as part of a "bad week for the White House.
Ramos, predictable to the point of boredom, raises the specter of racism as a possible rationale for Trump's public spats with journalists - despite overwhelming evidence that Trump's scorpion tail of a Twitter feed strikes with equal opportunity for all. And all of this is a veneer in front of the actual purpose of this column - to signal virtue in the Age of Trump by further throwing in with Lá Resistánce.
Ramos is right that Trump is not his boss. Univision's viewers are, and this most recent performance review is vicious - something that Ramos should humbly take into account going forward.
