Política Pop

[Originally published on Mediaite]

So what did President Obama say to Univisión? It was hard to tell.

As I began to watch the interview he gave to Jorge Ramos, I found myself moving closer and closer to the TV, as if I were deciphering a strange language. The premier Spanish network had made the awful choice of dubbing instead of subtitling the interview.

It took me back to my childhood, watching Hollywood films on Chilean TV on endless school afternoons—suffering because cowboys, pirates, lawyers and superheroes shared the same toothpaste-commercial voices. Later on, my brother and I turned this nonsense into a game: who could name more films or series in which this same overdubbing artist had taken over a famous actor.

But the miseries of being born on the wrong side of English stop being funny when you are trying to understand what the President is saying on relevant matters, and another voice paired with a lousy sound mix make it impossible. (The internet version sounds much better.)

Yet, the problem is not only that sound mixing may be tricky and the dubbing artist may remind you of the Latin American translation of Homer Simpson (which it did). Univisión’s choice was regrettable because what makes dubbing movies simply wrong (beautifully explained by Dolores Prida in the Daily News) applies to politics, too: much of what is being said resides in accents, pauses and inflections.

So yesterday I didn’t really watch President Obama talk to the millions of Hispanics who regularly tune into Univisión—a historic occasion, indeed.

It was something else. And I hated it.

And this is not to say that the interview wasn’t good. Jorge Ramos is a solid interviewer and displayed his skills by asking Obama three times if he had the votes to approve health care reform, pressing him to clarify his stance on health benefits for illegal immigrants; reminding him of the economic cost of forcing immigrants to use emergency rooms; questioning his switch from talking about “undocumented immigrants” to “illegal immigrants;” and reminding him of his promise of immigration reform during his first year in government.

Particularly on the last two topics, Ramos dealt significant blows to Obama: his change of words to refer to illegal immigrants is a sensitive topic among many Hispanics, and his answer (that he was merely replying to the attacks from the right in their own terms) was not convincing; on the latter, it is by now obvious that his promise of immigration reform in 2009 will not be fulfilled.

In other words, Ramos made the President tumble in the eyes of Hispanics.

But it was all lost in translation, and by that point, most of Univisión’s audience (who can most likely read subtitles and understand English at the same time) may have switched to another outlet—one in which they could hear their President with their own ears.

Photo via Daily Mail

Once the players finished the round of gentlemanly statements that define a tennis trophy ceremony, presenter Dick Enberg rushed to explain in morbid detail the prizes for the champion. But Del Potro seemed to have other things on his mind—who knows, perhaps glory may not be a Lexus convertible, after all.

“Can I speak in Spanish?” Del Potro said when the presenter finally paused for a second.

“Ah, sorry, we are running out of time here,” was Enberg’s cold response.

As Enberg kept talking about money, Del Potro looked as if he was being punished instead of crowned.

“And now, the presentation of the championship trophy…” Enberg went on.

But the man who had just beaten the greatest tennis player of all time still had some energy left. Politely, he requested to speak in Spanish for the second time.

“Very quickly, in Spanish, he wants to say ‘hello’ to his friends here and in Argentina,” presenter Enberg patronizingly said.

“I want to thank my team—this would have been impossible to achieve without them”, Del Potro said. “To all the Argentineans here, and especially to my mother, my father, Julieta, my grandparents and all my friends and the people who have supported me: This is for you.”

And then he cried, as we normally do when we are allowed to express great emotions in our native tongue.

A champion should not have to beg for that.

*

Watch the video: 

He says it’s not true, but the New York Post has sources saying that disgraced former governor Eliot “Spitzer has held informal discussions in recent weeks about the possibility of making a bid for state comptroller or the US Senate seat currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand.”

It’s been a year and half since the self-proclaimed “steamroller” resigned. He thought he was above the law.

He spent a little over a year in office. He didn’t get much done. This is one example of what he tried to do and was never able to:

Nothing changed on day one, unlike he had promised. Will he get a second chance?

Just the other infamous Richard – Nixon, that is – might be comparable to him. Like Paul Krugman says, Tricky Dick “was surely the worst person other than Dick Cheney ever to control the executive branch.” Both apparently followed the same maxim of “when the President does it, that means it is not illegal.“

The former vice president showed no remorse yesterday when admitting once again, to Fox News Chris Wallace, that he himself knew of the use of interrogation techniques that are widely classified as torture, such as waterboarding.

His rationale: we tortured, therefore we were safe.

However, to this day, Cheney hasn’t been able to give the public a single specific example of how torturing detainees provided his government with crucial intelligence to avoid another September 11.

“It’s clearly a political move,” Cheney says of Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate alleged abuses of terror detainees by CIA officers. Even those who might have gone beyond George W. Bush’s Justice Department legal guidelines should be spared of any scrutiny, according to Cheney.

“I’m very proud of what we did.”

By JOSÉ MANUEL SIMIÁN

The second installment of my Meet the Prensa columns on Mediaite is online.

In this interview, Nuyorican commentator Gerson Borrero reflects on his career, soap operas (“they make people stupid”), Fox News (“drive-by racists”), and Telemundo and Univisión (which he accuses of discriminating against Sonia Sotomayor).

It started as a quiet radio talk show—a dialogue between two journalists from competing Hispanic television networks. Both were praising the way their stations had been covering the ongoing hearings of Sonia Sotomayor before the Senate Judiciary Committee.It was the usual display of Hispanic pride, respect for the accomplished judge and her mother, and the reshaping of the American Dream.

Then NPR’s Tell Me More host Michel Martin asked what Gerson Borrero had to say.

[Read more]

Two interesting views on an evergreen topic for those of us who identify ourselves, or are referred to, as Latino/Hispanic.

First, the New York Times’ newsroom addresses to the usage of the Hispanic and Latino concepts. Bottom line: Never generalize (naming country of origin is better than the general concepts) and let people choose how to identify themselves.

Then, an opinion column from the Los Angeles Times by Jonathan Zimmerman (via the Hispanic New York Project) on the “mythical quality” of the concept of Hispanic. Striking affirmation: If you choose to identify yourself as “Hispanic,” you’re partly playing Nixon’s game.

The ugly spectacle currently taking place in Albany —Republicans allying with two of the most questioned Democrat Senators in order to regain some sort of control of the Senate— has produced an even sadder one: Latino figures somehow condoning the actions of Senators Monserrate and Espada Jr. because of a gain in political power for their particular ethnic group.

Yesterday it was Gerson Borrero, the preeminent commentator of El Diario, who seemed to approve of the overall effect of the Senators’ move for Puerto Ricans:

It is undenniable that [Espada's] move to get to the Pro Tempore Presidency of the Senate was brilliant.

[...]

Notwithstanding the mutual recriminations about who betrayed whom, or the debate about who currently presides which committee, it is now evident that we Puerto Ricans are sitting at the big table. Over the last years, other Latin American brothers have started to say that we boricuas don’t count. It is fitting that the coup d’état of the Republicans needed two boricuas to take place, and that it happened just six days before we flood Fifth Avenue like one single family.

Indeed, Espada and Monserrate are no match for judge Sonia Sotomayor, but it is undeniable that what both have achieved puts us in the main stage, proving that we are the present.

Latino politicias have expressed similar views. In a New York Times article that links this political move to tensions between Latino and Black politicians, Bronx Assemblyman José Rivera expressed that Espada’s irregular ascendance to the Presidency of the Senate was “a proud moment — a Latino making waves.”

Is this what we call “Latino pride”? I certainly hope not.

In her monthly column for the Daily News, Dolores Prida —perhaps the smartest voice in the analysis of Latino issues— addressed a few of the most frequently heard criticisms of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor: that she would be a “reverse racist” with a “temperament problem.”

Says Prida:

The temperament charge stems from the fact that Sotomayor is known as an assertive courtroom manager who keeps a tight rein on the proceedings and has little patience with dawdling lawyers — something that in a male judge is seen as a virtue.

(…)

And while this [reverse racism acussation] craziness went on, how have hot-tempered Latinos behaved? Like a model of coolness and restraint, shinning examples of dignity and respect.

That’s because, unlike those aggrieved white males, we have years and years of experience in being disrespected and really discriminated against and even murdered for just being who we are.

(Read Prida’s complete column here)

BY JOSÉ MANUEL SIMIÁN

Oh, what a week last one was for the Hispanic press of New York City. NY al Día, a new daily, appeared on the streets, and fellow blogger Juan Manuel Benítez put out the best (and only?) series analyzing Spanish newspapers I have seen on New York television.

That last praise comes from a friend, which may raise doubts among some of you. (Faithful readers of this blog, though, know that we aren’t afraid to fight.) But it’s not like anybody else will praise or say anything about those stories: we don’t exactly have an overflow of commentators on Latino media, not even on blogs (correct me if I’m wrong); not even after the Mayor decided it was essential to use his Spanish almost every time he has a presser. So here goes nothing, some reflections on the events of last week for those few freaks like me that actually care about (and/or make a living out of) Spanish media.

Of course, the existence of NY al Día is a positive development, as is its desire to create a healthy competition with El Diario. The problems arise from the General Manager, Juan Carlos Sánchez’s recent interviews with Benítez.  And taking into account the statements of his former boss, the ex Editor of the disappeared Hoy, Javier Castaño, the chances of having modern and promising newspapermen in Spanish-speaking New York seem terribly slim. (Most of NY al Día‘s team comes from Hoy.)

For starters, appearing in a recap of Benitez’s series, at NY1 Noticias’ Pura Política, Sánchez didn’t seem to have a clear business model. And, yes, I am aware that the newspaper crisis shutting down newsrooms accross the country is precisely about the death of the old business model. Yet, it was stunning that Sánchez’s best answer for the reasoning behind charging $0.40 for his product instead of giving it away for free was “because quality needs to have a price.” (Consumers would disagree: “Show me the quality and I’ll show you the money,” they’d probably say.)

Sánchez went even further with this price-as-value theory, claiming that the dissapearance of Hoy was caused in part because of it becoming a freebie, not because of the scandal of its inflated circulation numbers. Which takes us to the next worrisome issue: Sánchez could not account for 6,000 newspapers that seemed to be missing from the “official” 14,000 copies on the streets. Could history repeat itself so quickly?

But enough with worrying about paper and ink. After all, some of those problems will correct themselves soon (saving some trees along the way) thanks to the Internet. The most vexing problem: Sánchez and his former boss seem to be completely unaware of the current state of affairs between the newspaper industry and that online thing. I would even take things a step further and infer that they are convinced Latino newspapers share none of the concerns of, say, The New York Times.

A week after its release, NY al Día‘s only presence online is a banner announcing its imminent launch. “We don’t believe that the Internet is the first priority of the Hispanic community,” said Sánchez.

Here is the apparent strategy, then: to put this $0.40 piece of paper in the hands of Latinos so they can read, for instance, the results of yesterday’s sports games!

I understand that it’s easy to assume Latinos to which these publications aim at may be old school. They may prefer to buy the newspaper to read it on the bus on their way to work; maybe not all of them are crazy about reading news online as of now. But do they seriously believe that those “old school” Latinos are the only market out there? Do they really see NY al Día as a media outlet free from the 24-hour news cycle? Are these people thinking that in a few years, when Blackberries, iPhones or other devices become cheaper, relevant readers will not want to read their news digitally?

Statements made by Castaño in his appearance on the reporting series and Pura Política were clear in this Internet-denial direction. According to him, “the Internet is not the solution to the problems of the Hispanic press in this country.”

This phobia —or lack of understanding— of the online world seems to run even deeper than love for the printed page. In other statements, Castaño suggested that publishing news online somehow goes against the “old school” style of journalism he claims to be a part of. Furthermore, this high-quality journalism would return “soon,” when “people realize they have to pay for the [news on the] Internet…. [Then] they will go back to paying $0.50 for their [printed] newspaper.”

This confusion between the medium and the content is troublesome, akin to Sánchez’s suggestion that charging for a print copy amounts to quality in its pages.

I don’t expect every Hispanic journalist to follow and try to decipher Jay Rosen’s feed on the future of the media via Twitter. (It’s free, anyway, folks…) What I do expect of serious journalists is an impartial and objective look at the world changing around them. But something in Sánchez and Castaño’s statements makes me think of the movie Sixth Sense when, at the end of the film, the main character suddenly realizes he has been dead all along.