Recently, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos and Donald Trump had a tense moment when Trump removed Ramos from a press conference. Surprisingly, or maybe not, the media defended Trump, revealing some disappointing truths about the state of our media.
The incident began when Ramos’ interview request was denied by Tump’s campaign. Ramos then decided to attend a Trump press conference in Iowa where he attempted to ask a question as soon as the presser was opened up to questioning. Trump attempted to call on another reporter and had Ramos escorted out. He later let Ramos back into the press conference and they proceeded to have a back and forth over Trump’s immigration plan.
Much of the ensuing national news coverage saw this as a staged event by Ramos in which he acted inappropriately and was dismissed as an “activist” by Bill O’Reilly. The entire panel of Morning Joe pinned the entire incident on Ramos and charged him of being partisan by asserting that he wouldn’t go after President Obama in the same manner. It’s worth noting that Ramos challenged President Obama in their last interview on how his logic changed when he took executive action on deferred status for some undocumented people earlier this year. Megyn Kelly was one of the few people who defended Ramos by having him on her program.
It’s true that Ramos broke the decorum of the press conference, but the press has never been, nor should it be, about etiquette. In order to break major news stories, the media, news media in particular, needs to be able to maneuver in an etiquette gray area. No politician, agency, company, government, or institution is going to tell you their secrets on their own. The secrets of these actors are important because they affect public policy and change outcomes for the majority of people.
Unfortunately, our media has widely chosen to "play ball" with the famous and powerful because they believe it gives them the greatest amount of access. This line of thinking happens when TV executives only care about ratings, not about content. Perhaps an anchor doesn’t run a hard hitting piece on the president because then he will be less inclined to do an interview with that anchor. It doesn’t matter that the interview lacks substance, just that the president’s presence attracts a lot of people to tune in to watch that program.
The press has confused and switched objectivity with neutrality. Rather than find the facts of a given situation, they repeat two views on the matter and move on in a race to break the next big story. A true media, one that is a proper watchdog of the government, would find out and state the facts and expose those who hold positions contrary to them.
Despite the age of neutrality, it’s ironic that a large portion of the news which we accept has partisan viewpoints, mainly Fox News on the right and MSNBC on the left. CNN used to be the beacon of neutrality, but because of a declining audience they decided to go in the direction of becoming a tabloid by sensationalizing a particular event, like a missing plane or a shooting, 24/7.
In the original case, Ramos premised his question on the fact that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to those born in US Territory, the fact that deporting 11 million people is an expensive task, and the fact that a border wall is expensive and ineffective because 40 percent of undocumented immigrants have come by plane.
Facts are key to our political discourse, and our media intentionally fails find them so that people in power aren’t offended. Trump’s answer that “legal scholars” agree with him, none of whom he has ever cited, and that his plan will be executed because of “management,” are far from sufficient responses. Any press with a semblance of self-respect would have scorned Trump for these comical remarks on a topic as important as immigration policy. Sadly, today’s lapdog media attacked the one person who did their job of asking an important and uncomfortable question.
