The New Yorker:

Democrats fear that Univision has turned to the right, but the network may be the least of their problems.

By Geraldo Cadava

In early November, Donald Trump sat for an interview with the Televisa news anchor Enrique Acevedo, who came from Mexico to Mar-a-Lago for a conversation that aired on Univision. Grupo Televisa merged with Univision in early 2022, and, to many observers, the broadcast represented an about-face for the network. It almost certainly wouldn’t have happened if the interviewer had been Jorge Ramos, the main Univision anchor, whom Trump kicked out of a press conference in 2015. At the time, Ramos wanted to press Trump on his plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico, and deport undocumented immigrants. Trump told Ramos to “go back to Univision!,” which he and other conservatives saw as a left-leaning news outlet. But Trump’s feelings about Univision appear to have changed since the merger with Televisa. Like his Latino supporters, Trump told Acevedo, the leaders of Univision are “unbelievable entrepreneurial people. And they like me.” Acevedo nodded and smiled.

Liberal Latinos argued that Trump’s sitdown with Acevedo was a betrayal of Univision’s responsibility to deliver the truth to the Latino community. They pointed to the fact that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner—who is an acquaintance of Bernardo Gómez Martínez, a top executive of TelevisaUnivision—reportedly helped arrange the interview. They also complained that Univision rescheduled Biden campaign ads that were to air during the interview, and cancelled a post-interview spot with Maca Casado, the Biden campaign’s director of Hispanic media. (A spokesperson for TelevisaUnivision noted that Maca Casado did an on-air interview with Univision the following week, during a segment about Trump’s interview and the statements he has made about immigration.) Mostly, though, liberal Latinos were upset because Acevedo lobbed softballs for an hour and didn’t push back on Trump’s responses. He didn’t challenge Trump when he once again made false claims about winning the 2020 election and Mexico paying for construction of his border wall. He also didn’t question Trump about controversial statements he has made in other venues, including that immigrants are poisoning the “blood of our country.” 

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