The Governor wants a better intro
September 23, 2012 3:38 PM   Subscribe

What happened with Romney's Univision intro?

Given the story about Mitt Romney's "packing the house" demand at the recent Univision event and the story that:
While introducing Romney at the top of the broadcast, Salinas’s co-anchor, Jorge Ramos, noted that the Republican candidate had agreed to give the network 35 minutes, and that Obama had agreed to a full hour the next night. Ramos then invited the audience to welcome Romney to the stage — but the candidate didn’t materialize.

“It was a very awkward moment, believe me,” Salinas said.

Apparently, Romney took issue with the anchors beginning the broadcast that way, said Salinas, and he refused to go on stage until they re-taped the introduction. (One Republican present at the taping said Romney “threw a tantrum.”)

My questions are: Why did the network capitulate to the candidate instead of saying "Gov. Romney refuses to come on stage because he didn't like our introduction", and maybe they thought the time they would get from him was worth it, but why didn't they then put out the story about his "tantrum" as a legitimate news story in and of itself. And where are the tape of the two introductions? What am I missing here?
posted by mmf to Media & Arts (8 answers total)
 
Because the interview was important to them and they had probably spent a lot of money advertising it, and didn't want to look bad and/or partisan.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 3:42 PM on September 23, 2012 [3 favorites]


There's also the equal-access laws to consider: would failure to get Romney onstage for the interview mean they would have to cancel Obama's interview? I don't know.
posted by easily confused at 3:44 PM on September 23, 2012


Access.

Did you know that when candidates and party spokespeople give interviews to publications, the party first demands the right to veto any quotes before they get published? The NYT only recently decided to ban the practice, but they can get away with it because they're a big enough fish.

If a smaller media outlet (like Univision?) decides to stand up to party demands then too bad; they don't get to interview the candidates. And for big media companies content trumps ethics.
posted by no regrets, coyote at 3:46 PM on September 23, 2012


Any network that plays gotcha! with a politician, a celebrity, a news maker will quickly find that their producers won't be able to book anyone, their calls will go unreturned, and sources will dry up. This sort of action isn't news and for Univision to report it as such would be a big breach. And there might be a digital file of this, but I'd guess that Romney's handlers requested that it be deleted right away. Univision isn't a small local outfit.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:47 PM on September 23, 2012


There's also the equal-access laws to consider

There are no equal-access laws in the US.
posted by TungstenChef at 3:50 PM on September 23, 2012 [9 favorites]


There's also the equal-access laws to consider: would failure to get Romney onstage for the interview mean they would have to cancel Obama's interview? I don't know.
If you're referring to the US when speaking about equal-access, the Fairness Doctrine went out in 1987. So, while there are plenty commercial reasons to seem neutral and give "equal access", such a position is not/no longer enshrined in US Admin law.
posted by atomicstone at 3:50 PM on September 23, 2012 [1 favorite]


The answer is because the media and politicians are two sides of the same coin - they need each other to survive.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:08 PM on September 23, 2012 [3 favorites]


Relative to a lot of other countries, US political news media is notoriously gutless, because at this level of politics in the USA they know they will effectively be severely punished if they do (what is elsewhere seen as) their job. Consequences include losing access to the top level politicians in the future, perhaps being attacked as partisan and their credability damaged, etc.

Other (non-oppressive) countries, the top level politicians have less power over the media, the reasons for which probably include them not having more powerful alternative ways to get their message out (superPACs, Whitehouse announcements, etc), so even the leader of the country may have to submit to interviews to argue their position, rather than simply broadcast it themselves.

The last time I saw a sitting US president in any approximating of an interview was Bush overseas when his people apparently didn't realize in time that it was to be an actual interview. She went easy on him, but the Whitehouse was outraged and immediately changed their policy so it wouldn't happen again. You can see he's absolutely unused to "interview" meaning anything different from a politician getting free air time to present their message.
posted by anonymisc at 4:20 PM on September 23, 2012 [3 favorites]


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