Weekly Example of Media Bias - November 30, 2016
1. In his post, Bonilla wrote: "Jorge Ramos broke sharply from the rest of the media by simply calling a dictator a dictator. The tone of the show was proper in that it was somber. Viewers got to see the reality of Fidel Castro through the voices of people whose lives were affected by the tyrant."
In contrast, on NBC’s Sunday Today show, reporter Andrea Mitchell glowed about the communist leader and shared her memories of him. “[Castro] was …very, very aware of everything that was going on, very, very smart and very wedded to his revolutionary ideology,” Mitchell opined from Havana, Cuba. Throughout her whole report Mitchell failed to mention the huge celebrations taking place in Little Havana in Miami by Cuban exiles and their families…
Following her report Mitchell reminisced about her past encounters with the late dictator. “We would argue, he would have dinners or meetings or interviews starting at midnight going to 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning so sometimes hard just to keep up with him,” recounted Mitchell, “And he was a voracious reader questioning me about the politics and the economy in the US.”
Why is Ramos' show on Castro not biased while, in comparison, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell's report on Castro is a biased one?
2. In a November 29 commentary, Jorge Ramos wrote:
Castro was a brutal dictator, quick to use violence. He ordered the executions of his opponents, locked up political prisoners and violated human rights. He also averted multiparty elections, viciously censored the press and maintained absolute control over every corner of the island. He wasn’t a hero, and we shouldn’t present him as one now that he’s dead.
For years, I asked Latin American leaders if they considered Castro a dictator. Very few dared to admit it on the record. They feared and respected him and admired how he stood up to the United States for so long. Only in private would they denounce Cuba’s lack of liberty.
Now that Castro is gone, I’d rather talk not about him but about his millions of victims.
As a journalist, Jorge Ramos reports the news from a liberal perspective, supporting the liberal point of view on immigration and other issues. However, he breaks from the media's narrative on Castro and portays him as he really was. What obligation do other news organizations and journalists have to do so as well? (Especially considering younger people who don't know firsthand about the abuses committed by the Communist dictator Castro.)