Haim Saban is an Egyptian born Israeli-American and Chairman of Univision, the Hispanic television station. For the past several months, Univision has tried to get Marco Rubio to come on Univision for an interview and offered to kill or run a negative story on Marco Rubio’s brother-in-law depending on what Rubio did.
Senator Rubio would not be bought and Univision ran the story on his brother-in-law. Subsequently, all of the Republican candidates refused to participate in a debate on Univision, opting instead for a debate with Univision’s competitor Telemundo.
The New Yorker has a big story on what Univision did or did not do to Marco Rubio. It’s fully pro-Univision spin. The Miami Herald has reviewed it. About all you need to know is that Haim Saban, Chairman of Univision, claims that Marco Rubio is “anti-Hispanic.”
The New Yorker piece is written by liberal writer Ken Auletta who once claimed that Rubert Murdoch imposes his political preferences on Fox News and other Newscorp holdings, but for some reason can’t seem to believe Haim Saban, who has a long history of supporting left-leaning causes (though supported George W. Bush in 2004 because of Israel), would do the same.
And we know what agenda Haim Saban wants to push. According to Saban, “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.” Saban wanted to get the Republicans on stage and have a slanted debate with questions sympathetic to illegal immigration — a set up to help the Democrats woo hispanic voters in 2012.
But Univision overplayed its hand with Rubio who stood up to them and now they have no debate, no bridge to the most popular Hispanic Republican in America, and just a liberal writer willing to use the New Yorker to let Univision whine.
A more important issue here is that Univision seems intent to let this kerfuffle fester and to use its “news” resources to damage both Marco Rubio and Republicans. In particular, the Chairman of Univision seems willing to admit he will use Univision to portray Republicans as “anti-Hispanic” in 2012 in an effort to help Democrats. The GOP might want to start wooing Telemundo not as a GOP alternative, but as an objective news source without Univision’s baggage.
