The Media and Democracy Project signs on to America's Voice’s letter to Univision CEOs calling for higher journalistic standards

The Media and Democracy Project is proud to be one of 82 organizations supporting America's Voice's call for a review of Univision's policies after they aired an ingratiating interview of Donald Trump

Donald Trump is a presidential candidate. It is important for voters to understand what he stands for, what his record is, and how he would govern if elected. But voters are not served by networks giving him an hour of flattery and softball questions as Univision did on November 9, 2023 . All presidential candidates should be interviewed by someone who will probe important issues, challenge lies and ask informative follow-up questions — otherwise the appearance is essentially a political advertisement. Failure to do this is particularly egregious considering that Donald Trump has a long and well-documented history of lies, racism and even broken its laws. It is even worse when the most impactful Spanish-language TV network that purports to represent the Latino community fails to inform and is complicit in misinforming its audience.

We salute America’s Voice for quickly raising this important issue and mobilizing a strong coalition in an effort to hold the executives who now lead TelevisaUnivision to account for the actions of their network.. We are honored to support this effort. The press release is here and the full letter, with the list of distinguished organizations that endorsed it, is available here.

While the letter focuses on Trump’s record as an anti-immigrant president, that is only a small part of the problem. Univision has additionally harmed the Latino community as the fawning interview it served to normalize Trump, amplify his lies and propaganda unchallenged and in effect provided him with unpaid visibility and campaign promotion. This is unacceptable for Univision, for CNN and for any other news outlet. Many journalists, media critics and others have made this point well and emphatically but we’ll highlight two  — Univision’s own highly-respected journalist Jorge Ramos: “We cannot normalize behavior that threatens democracy and the Hispanic community, or offer Trump an open microphone to broadcast his falsehoods and conspiracy theories”. The Danger of Not Confronting Trump

And former Univision President Joaquin Blaya who blasted the interview saying “It was not an interview as we understand [it] in the United States. It was basically a one-hour propaganda open space for former President Trump to say whatever he wanted to say”. 

In conclusion, from the America’s Voice Letter to the TelevisaUnivision executives  “We demand Univision conduct a thorough internal review, take corrective measures, and reaffirm its commitment to unbiased reporting and to keeping the Latino community informed and up-to-date with facts and truth. Unfiltered, unaddressed and unrestricted disinformation does a disservice to all communities in the U.S. and will destroy Univision’s reputation as a credible network that informs an important electorate.”