New York Times
By Ashley Parker
August 26, 2015
Ricardo
Sánchez, known as “El Mandril” on his Spanish-language, drive-time
radio show in Los Angeles, has taken to calling Donald J. Trump “El
hombre del peluquín” — the
man of the toupee.
Some
of Mr. Sánchez’s listeners are less kind, referring to Mr. Trump, who
has dismissed some Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and criminals, simply
as “Hitler.”
Mr.
Sánchez says that he tries to focus on the positive in presidential
politics, but he, too, at times has used harsh language to describe Mr.
Trump, a real estate mogul,
according to translations of his show provided by his executive
producer.
“A
president like Trump would be like giving a loaded gun to a monkey,”
Mr. Sanchez said in one broadcast. “But a gun that fires atomic
bullets.”
The
adversarial relationship between Mr. Trump and the Spanish-language
news media, which has simmered publicly since he announced his candidacy
in June, boiled over on
Tuesday at a news conference in Dubuque, Iowa, when the candidate
erupted at Jorge Ramos, a news anchor at Univision and Fusion, when he
tried to ask a question without being called on. Mr. Trump signaled to
one of his security guards, who physically removed
Mr. Ramos from the event.
“Don’t touch me, sir. Don’t touch me,” Mr. Ramos said, as he was marched out of the room. “I have the right to ask a question.”
Mr.
Ramos was eventually allowed to return. But for the Spanish-language
press, which has grown in size and influence in politics, the tense
exchange was a highly public
flexing of muscle against a candidate who many outlets no longer
pretend to cover objectively: They are offended by Mr. Trump’s words and
tactics — and they are showing it.
Some,
including Mr. Ramos, said that their networks have covered Mr. Trump
more aggressively than their mainstream counterparts, which until
recently, at least, largely
dismissed Mr. Trump as a summer amusement — less a serious candidate
than a ratings bonanza in the form of a bombastic reality television
star. (After the dust-up with Mr. Ramos on Tuesday night, the National
Association of Hispanic Journalists issued a statement
condemning Mr. Trump.)
Mr.
Ramos, who earlier this month delivered a searing indictment of Mr.
Trump, calling him, “the loudest voice of intolerance, hatred and
division in the United States,”
attributed the difference in approach to how directly the issue of
immigration affects Latino Americans.
“This
is personal, and that’s the big difference between Spanish-language and
mainstream media, because he’s talking about our parents, our friends,
our kids and our babies,”
Mr. Ramos said in a telephone interview.
Mr.
Ramos, who has been called the Walter Cronkite of Latino America for
the tremendous influence he holds with Hispanic viewers, said that he
could not recall Spanish-language
news media covering a story as aggressively as it has Mr. Trump’s
candidacy.
And
though cable news and the Sunday morning news shows have blanketed
their political coverage with stories about Mr. Trump’s improbable
campaign, the focus of Spanish-language
news programs has been almost exclusively on Mr. Trump’s controversial
stance on immigration.
About
58 percent of all mentions of Mr. Trump in mainstream news media —
broadcast, cable, radio and online outlets — in the past month have
focused on immigration, while
on Spanish-language news programs, the proportion is almost 80 percent,
according to an analysis by Two.42.Solutions, a nonpartisan media
analytics company. The Spanish-language news media has also been more
critical in its coverage of Mr. Trump’s positions
on the issue, with nearly all of it negative in tone.
José
Díaz-Balart, an anchor for Telemundo and MSNBC who takes a
straight-news approach to his coverage and does not consider himself an
advocate, nonetheless said that
because of its viewership, Telemundo has delved deeper into the
specifics of Mr. Trump’s immigration plan than many English-language
outlets and has covered his candidacy with a sense of “urgency.”
“Our
audience is very well versed, very knowledgeable, very well educated on
the issue of immigration,” Mr. Díaz-Balart said, adding that his
viewers are eager to hear
“what are you realistically proposing and planning to do on the issues
that are so important to the community.”
When
Mr. Trump visited the United States-Mexico border last month, the
Spanish-language networks devoted more time to Mr. Trump in their
evening broadcasts than their
English-language counterparts; Univision gave Mr. Trump six minutes,
while Telemundo — which had Mr. Díaz-Balart anchor his nightly newscast
live from the border — spent nine minutes on Mr. Trump.
In
addition to his comments calling Mexican immigrants drug dealers and
rapists, Mr. Trump’s immigration plan — which includes erecting a wall
along the southern border
and ending birthright citizenship — has also earned the ire of many
Hispanics, who are expected to be a critical voting bloc in 2016.
Univision
severed ties with the Miss Universe Organization, of which Mr. Trump is
a part owner, because of his offensive comments about Mexican
immigrants. Mr. Trump is
now suing the network for $500 million.
Ken
Oliver-Méndez, the director of the Hispanic media arm of the
conservative Media Research Center, said that in the Spanish-language
news media, “There’s just very opinionated,
very sweeping condemnations of Donald Trump taking place.”
An
analysis of news, blogs and forums by Crimson Hexagon, a nonpartisan
social media analytics software company, also found that overall
mentions of Mr. Trump in the Spanish-language
news media since he announced his candidacy were 69 percent negative,
but were less negative — 58 percent — in the English-language news
media.
Critics
of the Spanish-language news coverage, including Mr. Oliver-Méndez, say
that the Hispanic press is engaging in advocacy and not journalism.
“The
Spanish-language media is basically taking Trump through the prism of
what’s best for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country,
so to the extent that
Trump is coming out with statements that are threatening the existence
of that community, he’s been covered like an enemy,” he said.
He
pointed to several moments last week on the national United States
evening news broadcasts of Azteca America, a Spanish-language television
network. In one, an anchor
said that Mr. Trump had nothing in his head but air, and in another,
Armando Guzmán, a Washington correspondent, accused Mr. Trump of lying:
“As in everything else, Trump is not telling the truth,” Mr. Guzmán
said.
The
last one-on-one interview Mr. Trump gave to a Spanish-language network
was with Mr. Díaz-Balart on Telemundo, shortly after Mr. Trump announced
his candidacy. The
Trump campaign said it continues to give credentials to
Spanish-language organizations for its events and treats them like all
other news media.
Alex
Nogales, the president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, a
civil rights organization focused on American Latinos, said that the
Spanish-language news media’s
coverage of Mr. Trump has broad implications for the presidential
election, whether or not he becomes the Republican nominee.
He
said that for Latino voters, there will be a “reinforcement in terms of
what they’re hearing, what they’re seeing, what they’re listening to”
from the Republican candidates.
Lawrence
Glick, an executive vice president at the Trump Organization who
oversees golf, called Mr. Nogales this month, saying “he wanted to make
peace” and set up a meeting
with Mr. Trump, Mr. Nogales said. (The coalition has been calling for
the suspension of all professional golf tournaments from Trump courses).
But the two men seem to have reached an impasse, with no meeting
imminent.
Mr. Ramos, for his part, sees a possible bright spot in Mr. Trump’s 2016 role.
“The
only positive thing I might think of for Mr. Trump is that he brought
immigration to the forefront of the 2016 campaign,” he said.
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