When former President Bill Clinton took center stage at Univision’s upfront presentation for advertisers and the media on Tuesday, it marked more than just one of his many paid appearances.

The relationship between the Clintons and Univision is deep — from owner Haim Saban’s unabashed support for Hillary Clinton’s election effort to a partnership between Univision and the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, to the network’s newscasts that have bashed Republicans and, most recently, praised Hillary’s new position on immigration — putting her squarely in line with the network’s stance on the issue.


The importance of Univision for the Latino electorate and 2016 is hard to overstate. It is by far the biggest Spanish-language media network in the United States when it comes to revenue, ratings and stations owned. In some markets, such as Los Angeles, the Univision-owned local newscasts are in the top one or two by ratings. On big nights for the Hispanic community, such as President Barack Obama’s remarks on immigration in November, Univision raked in 4.8 million viewers, more than any other network. During the July sweeps last summer, Univision boasted the No. 1 spot in prime time among viewers ages 18 to 49 for the second year in a row.

“You have to go to Univision to get to Latino voters,” said Gabriela Domenzain, a liberal strategist who was a founding producer on Univision’s Sunday news show “Al Punto” and who ran Obama’s Hispanic media outreach in the 2012 election.

“Even though demographics are changing and more Latinos and young Latinos get their news from English-language sites and media, Univision … has been front and center advocating for Latinos for 25 years,” she said. “Maybe it’s not the 18-25 voters” who watch Univision, “but their moms do and their grandmas do, and if not, it’s in the background. You can’t disassociate the power of the older generation on the younger generation either.”

Univision and the Clinton Foundation joined forces in 2014 for a multiyear early childhood initiative dubbed Pequeños y Valiosos (or Young and Valuable). The relationship proved of immediate value to Hillary Clinton, whose face was featured in five of seven slides on Univision’s website promoting the initiative in February 2014. She also held a New York media event at which reporters couldn’t ask her questions.

The initiative between the Clintons and Univision last year provoked a sharp response from the Republican National Committee, which accused the network of promoting Hillary Clinton ahead of her presidential campaign. The RNC, which has tussled with the network behind the scenes over its coverage of the GOP and immigration, did not give Univision a chance to host a presidential primary debate this year.

Univision spokeswoman Monica Talan, however, emphasized the bipartisan nature of the initiative in an email, noting that its Leadership Council members include Cindy McCain, wife of Sen. John McCain; former Republican Sen. Bill Frist; and Sara Martinez Tucker, George W. Bush’s undersecretary of education.

“As far as Pequeños y Valiosos, this is a Corporate initiative that is focused on children and is a partnership of Too Small To Fail, one of many foundations and partners we work with to promote education to our Hispanic community,” Talan wrote via email. “As a Company we have been transparent, disclosing the partners in this initiative to our audiences. Our focus is on helping children in the Hispanic community, not on party affiliations.”

But the connection to the foundation isn’t always transparent on the network’s nightly newscast, even in reports that are specifically about the foundation. There was no mention of the network’s partnership with the Clinton Foundation in a May 4 segment on Univision’s nightly news program about allegations that donations to the foundation affected Hillary Clinton’s decisions during her tenure as secretary of state.

Talan declined to respond specifically to questions about disclosing the network’s relationship with the foundation in its reporting.

Domenzain said she thought the network should always note the partnership whenever covering the Clinton Foundation.

“Even if it’s apolitical, for childhood education … given that the foundation most likely will be a center theme in this campaign, that yes, these are alliances that should be put out in the open,” Domenzain said. “When covering the political aspect of it, yes they should, and they’re going to be much more under the microscope because of that.”

Then there’s the subject of Univision’s owner, billionaire media mogul Saban, who purchased Univision in 2007 along with a group of investors. Saban has donated as much as $25 million to the Clinton Foundation, and his wife sits on its board. He has said it’s a dream of his to see Hillary Clinton elected. The week before Bill Clinton’s Univision appearance, Saban hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in California.

“As much as is needed,” Saban said in July when asked by Bloomberg Politics how much he’d give to the Clinton campaign. “I think she would be great for the country and great for the world.”

Despite Saban’s Clinton fandom, a firewall exists between editorial and corporate, Univision’s Talan wrote in an email.

“As President and CEO, Randy Falco is responsible for maintaining separation between Haim Saban, any other Board member and our News division when it comes to news and editorial judgments. The News division must have complete editorial independence, and it does,” she said.

Daniel Coronell, Univision News’ senior vice president, told BuzzFeed in January that Saban is very respectful of the network’s journalistic independence.

“He’s not connected with our day to day; we’re not in this to build his happiness,” Coronell said.

But a spirit of Republican-bashing has sometimes reared its head at Univision. Coronell’s own assistant, for instance, was outed by The Miami Herald after she repeatedly trashed Sen. Marco Rubio on her Facebook page.

Republicans say that incident is emblematic of a culture at Univision in which employees don’t have to be told to be biased. Many national Republicans don’t trust the network. They’re suspicious of Saban’s ties to the Clintons. And some believe that the network’s claims of balance is just lip service designed to minimize friction and negative media coverage as part of an effort to fetch a higher price for a planned initial public offering within the next year.

“Based on what we’ve seen so far, Univision’s coverage of the Clinton campaign has been characterized by cheerleading more than anything else,” said Ken Oliver-Méndez, director of the conservative-leaning Media Research Center’s Latino division. “The extremely solicitous and practically acritical coverage Hillary Clinton has been receiving from Univision so far stands in stark contrast with the consistently tough coverage Republicans like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have been receiving on the network in recent weeks.”

Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Spanish-speaking Republican from Miami who watches Univision and is a moderate on immigration reform, said Univision needs to be more cautious.

“To preserve the integrity of its journalists, Univision should be more careful about identifying with political candidates and parties,” he said.

Curbelo said he couldn’t speculate too much about why there has been relatively little coverage of Univision’s relationship with the Clintons, but he said it would be hard to imagine Rupert Murdoch being treated the same way if he pledged to support a candidate who had a separate initiative that Fox promoted.

“He would be far more criticized and pilloried if he did something like that. Spanish-language networks probably don’t draw as much attention. But when you’re talking about Univision, it has high ratings. It does matter,” Curbelo said.

“When you have the ownership of a network aggressively backing a presidential candidate — combined with advocacy journalism on some issues — it threatens the journalistic integrity of a news organization,” he added.

The top “advocacy” issue: immigration. Last week (on Cinco de Mayo, no less) Clinton went beyond Obama on immigration, promising that as president she would use executive action to allow more undocumented immigrants to get legal protection and work permits, a position her husband Bill echoed on stage at Univision on Tuesday. Jorge Ramos, Univision’s star anchor and correspondent who is open about his feelings toward immigration reform, tweeted a day later that the debate over immigration might be over.

“I wonder how Republicans are going to respond to the immigration proposals by @HillaryClinton Maybe the debate is over already,” he tweeted.

Ramos has also drawn criticism from some in the mainstream media, who say he strays from objectivity into advocacy. But Univision News President Isaac Lee — who has equated speaking truth in today’s politics to speaking out against the Nazis during World War II — vigorously defends Ramos’ journalist-activist role.

“He’s entitled to his opinion. I don’t think Jorge wants to be impartial, I think Jorge wants to be a responsible journalist,” Lee said in April during the International Symposium on Online Journalism conference in Austin. “Univision’s audience knows that Jorge is representing them. That he is not asking the questions to be celebrated as a fair and balanced journalist. He’s asking the questions to represent them. He’s going to ask the person whatever is necessary to push the agenda for a more fair society, for a more inclusive society and for the Hispanic community to be better.”

To be sure, Ramos has been tough on both Democrats and Republicans. In an infamously testy interview with Obama late last year, Ramos accused the president of not doing enough early in his term to stop deportations, telling him he “destroyed many families.” But many Republicans remain wary of Ramos and of Univision, though Domenzain said it was just an excuse to avoid tough questions.

“I think it’s mostly an excuse to not go on. I can’t tell you how many times we’d extend offers to Republicans and they wouldn’t come,” Domenzain said. “What they don’t like is Univision’s immigration editorial line because it goes against their beliefs.”

The feud between Univision and Republicans broke into the open in 2011 after Rubio and the network clashed. At the time, Rubio was a newly elected senator — and former Univision commentator — and the network wanted to spend a day with him and talk about immigration reform. At the time, Rubio wasn’t ready. And his staff didn’t trust the crusading Ramos to conduct a fair interview because he was such an advocate for the DREAM Act and, in the words of one Rubio adviser, “open borders.” So Rubio’s office declined but said it would be willing to participate in an interview with another Univision reporter from South Florida.

That’s when things got strange. A reporter from Univision’s investigative team soon cold-called Rubio’s sister and asked about the 24-year-old drug bust of her husband. Rubio’s staff said the senator — who was 16 at the time of the arrest in question — was basically being pressured to submit to an interview or have his family embarrassed. Univision honchos denied the claim, but Isaac Lee later acknowledged to The New Yorker that the network offered the senator “options” regarding how the story of his brother-in-law would be reported. Rubio declined the offer of the “options,” the story ran and Republicans flipped out when the Miami Herald reported the story of the discussions.

Led by Rubio’s longtime friend then-Rep. David Rivera, Republican candidates for president announced they would boycott a proposed debate that Univision wanted to host. Republicans felt even more justified in their decision when they read the reaction of Univision’s chairman, Saban, in The New Yorker: “The fact that Rubio and some Republican Presidential candidates have an anti-Hispanic stand that they don’t want to share with our community is understandable but despicable. So ‘boycotting’ Univision, the largest Spanish-language media company in the U.S., is disingenuous at best and foolish at worst.”

Behind the scenes, Univision hired lobbyists with ties to the GOP to smooth things over with the Republican National Committee. But at the same time, Republicans say, they grew more concerned about the network’s coverage of Republicans, particularly on immigration. Criticism of Rubio was rife in Univision’s newsrooms. During the August 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, an unknown person trashed Rubio via Univision’s official Facebook account, writing “beyond his ideology, Rubio is a mediocre politician who contradicts the values he says he represents. Jeb Bush is more Latino and talented than him.” Months later, a top assistant to a Univision news boss ripped Rubio on Twitter by calling him a “loser” and “a token slave boy.”

Shortly after he announced his campaign for president in April, Rubio sat down for a relatively calm interview with Ramos and made news by saying he’d attend a gay marriage of someone he loved but that he’d get rid of deferred action for children of illegal immigrants. But a report on Univision’s morning show two weeks later included a title on the screen describing Rubio’s comments on gay marriage (that it’s “ridiculous” to believe there’s a constitutional right to gay marriage) as a “postura radical” (radical position). And last week, during a local Arizona broadcast on Univision, the network played up Rubio’s refusal to talk with an immigration activist for the liberal group Mi Familia Vota.

Though BuzzFeed reports Univision is working to develop better relationships in both parties with internal “red” and “blue” teams, Republicans still have a hurdle when it comes to their relationship with Univision in the 2016 election. The network was already snubbed for a chance at hosting a GOP primary debate, with Telemundo picking up hosting duties instead.

“Regardless of those relationships, what’s really interesting this cycle is Fusion in particular and the Jorge Ramos show in Fusion has brought them onto the English language mainstream radar, so they’re under much more pressure to be quote-unquote ‘balanced’; however, the Univision editorial line on immigration is always going to be there,” Domenzain said.

But for Hillary, things with Univision are looking good.

“Hillary’s Cinco de Mayo Promise: path to citizenship for [undocumented], DACA and extended executive action. Of course we’ll remember @HillaryClinton,” Ramos tweeted last week.

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