Oh, to be that role model, Jorge Ramos!

OPINION During a college campus stop in Hillary Clintons 2008 presidential campaign in California, a lovely young woman volunteering for the candidate rushed up to…

Por Tony Castro

29 Jul 2014, 01:07 AM EDT

Jorge Ramos speaks at an event at the National Press Club in 2010 about a project developed between Univision and NASA to improve Latino high school graduation rates. Even though some are criticizing Ramos for being an advocate of the unaccompanied minors entering the US, it’s important to note he has always espoused pro-immigration activism. (NASA/Bill Ingalls/Flickr)

OPINION

During a college campus stop in Hillary Clintons 2008 presidential campaign in California, a lovely young woman volunteering for the candidate rushed up to me in the area roped off for working news media and nervously asked for an autograph.

I didnt know why but signed her event program just the same.

Wait, she said, a look of disappointment as she studied my signature. Youre not Jorge Ramos, then?

We all had a laugh, even the young woman who asked if I could introduce her to Jorge if he were around.

Oh, the life of Jorge Ramos!

He is the hottest journalist in America, it seems, having made a name for himself at Univision and now becoming a broader household name with his America with Jorge Ramos show on Fusion, the English network aimed at millennials from a partnership between Univision and ABC.

With all the fame, though, have come the critics, especially those in the media who have trouble accepting Ramoss championing of the underdog, especially immigrants and comprehensive immigration reform.

His reporting is being called activist journalism, dismissed by many in traditional journalism who on one level see Ramos as a Latino on an egalitarian crusade for Hispanics and roll their eyes; as if one Geraldo Rivera werent enough, they now have to contend with a guy who swims the Rio Grande in jeans and denim shirt looking better than Geraldo ever did?

The latest to do so is Luis Carlos Lopez, a young reporter in Texas for whom Jorge once served as a role model. But Mr. Lopez, a graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix, is now disappointed, with second thoughts about Mr. Ramos.

I admired you because you represented a Hispanic reporter who was in search for truth, balance and unbiased reporting, Mr. Lopez writes in an Open Letter to Jorge published by VOXXI.COM. You have for some time now, become an advocate for immigration and spokesperson for their plight.

Thats not our job.

While there is a part of me the part nurtured by traditional journalism that agrees with Mr. Lopez, I wonder if hes not missing the overall portrait of American journalism and forgetting those who likely had a greater impact on the industry than the wire-service guy with the cop mentality just the facts mam?

I wonder if in the future Jorge Ramos’s journalism might not actually be seen in that light and whether his “America” show on Fusion won’t be considered a trailblazing phenomenon that brought his reporting and activism into the English-speaking audience and helped in changing our world.

For what did we go into this profession in the first place?

Was it just to report he-said-she-said ridiculousness to fill up blank newsprint, or was it only a few who went into this to have some impact on our society and the world, to make it safer for more than just the soccer moms of El Paso?

Let me say that I am not a personal friend of Mr. Ramos, defending him here out of some loyalty. We have exchanged greetings and little more. I confess to sometimes being mistaken by his fans and having had more than one phone number slipped into my hand by a beautiful woman who thought I was Jorge.

But I am not Jorge Ramos, and neither will most, if not all, of the Hispanic journalists who follow in our footsteps. We should be, but we cant, whether its because we lack the talent, the commitment or, most importantly, the cojones.

For Jorge–to be realistic–transcends traditional journalism and the traditional world as it has been. Personally and professionally, I myself see Jorge Ramos as our Jean-Paul Marat, the activist journalist and politician of the French Revolution who once said of himself, I am the rage of my people.

And make no mistake, we are in a revolution today, different in ways than that of Marat, but a revolution just the same, and Mr. Ramossimpact will be more far-reaching and lasting than most anything that will come out of our over-rated American journalism schools.

After all, didn’t Walter Cronkite drop out of college?

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