Jorge Ramos, the Univision reporter/anchor who was famously thrown out of a Donald Trump circle jerk for practicing journalism without permission has a long history of pissing off dangerous, rich, powerful criminals.
In “Jorge Ramos Is Not Walter Cronkite,” Marcela Valdes argues that while many compare Ramos to Cronkite, he more closely resembles Oriana Fallaci, a confrontational and seemingly fearless Italian reporter who made her bones in the seventies. Chris Hitchens was a fan.
The most telling vignette from Valdes' profile of Jorge Ramos:
[I]n 1991 he was elbowed in the stomach and knocked to the ground by a bodyguard after accosting a politician, peppering him with questions and making an uncomfortable declaration. This time, the politician was President Fidel Castro of Cuba, and what Ramos said was, “Many people believe that this is the time for you to call for an election.” At the last word, the bodyguard’s elbow struck.
Getting face to face with Castro had taken some creativity. Ramos’s formal requests for an interview were met with silence, so he and a cameraman ambushed Castro outside a hotel room during the first meeting of the Ibero-American Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico. As Ramos tumbled to the ground, his microphone sailing through the air, he recalls, “Castro said nothing, he just kept walking, not even turning around to look at me.”
Jorge Ramos Is Not Walter Cronkite [NYT Mag]
