Immigration Reform’s Wild-Card Power Broker
Jorge Ramos: Immigration Reform’s Wild-Card Power Broker
The night after the presidential election, the news anchors on the Spanish-language network Univision, Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Selena, began their nightly newscast with something of a celebration. As Ramos opened the broadcast, the screen lit up with the numbers 71 and 27 — the share of the Hispanic electorate that voted, respectively, for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. The surge in Latino voting was a coup for Ramos, who is as much an immigration activist as he is a news anchor. In an ABC News advertisement targeting Latino voters, Ramos explained the stakes: “I know we are 50 million strong, but it means nothing if we don’t vote. The lesson is very simple: If you vote, we will be powerful.”
Ramos was right, of course. Latinos came out to vote in record numbers this election, and their impact has been made clear. Univision averaged 3.6 million prime-time viewers the week of the election, almost three times that of Telemundo, it’s closest Spanish-language competitor. Some nights, Univision’s newscast outranks even its English language competitors among adults between 18 and 34 in cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, according to the American Journalism Review. And, unlike its competitors, Univision’s ratings are growing. As evidence of the network’s mounting influence, for the first time in history, both presidential candidates taped individual televised forums with the network. And Univision’s political impact won’t end with the election. Having seen Latinos’ electoral might, both parties are saying immigration reform will likely be on the agenda in 2013 — and Ramos and Univision are in a prime position to shape the debate.
Over the phone last week, Ramos told me that he sees Univision as a “social leader” in the Hispanic community. The network’s role in the community was especially clear in the weeks before the election, when it devoted extensive news coverage to the voter suppression efforts across the country and provided information for their viewers about voter registration in hopes of getting out the Latino vote. “Some people have really no other option than to watch us to find out what is going to happen with their life,” Ramos told me. In 2010, a survey from the Pew Hispanic Center found that Ramos was one of four people Hispanics identified as the “most important” national Latino leader—along with Sonia Sotomayor and Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez. When the immigration debate begins in earnest, “from that table in Miami, he is a player in the negotiations,” says Roberto Suro, an expert on Latino politics and media at USC’s Annenberg School (and a friend to Ramos).