On Guard – Jorge Ramos

The 56-year old Mexican-born journalist Jorge Ramos has been the face of Univision’s flagship news program since 1986. He’s been a trusted and award-winning voice in Spanish language news for nearly 30 years thanks to interviews with every U.S. President since George H.W. Bush and his coverage of major international conflicts from the civil war in El Salvador to the falling of the Berlin Wall. But in 2015, Ramos went from being the Latino Walter Cronkite to its Edward R. Murrow, turning up the heat on politicians on both sides who continue to delay immigration reform. His confrontation with Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump – who temporarily kicked him out of an Iowa press conference rather than answer his questions about immigration – instantly went viral and sparked a debate not just about what do with more than 11 million undocumented residents, but also the media’s larger role in modern advocacy.

An immigrant himself who came to this country in his early 20s, Ramos has never been bashful about his perspective and how he is unlikely to ever really forget the road that he has taken. “You never stop being an immigrant and that affects everything that you do,” he told Washington Monthly in 2012. “Probably you work harder. Since we lost everything at least once in our lives, there is always that very uncomfortable sensation that it could happen again.” It shows in his drive. Among other things Ramos has written 11 books, hosts a book club and three news programs on two stations.

This year, the man behind the news became news himself, drawing just as many detractors as admirers. For some in the mainstream media, his journalism crossed the line into social activism and dangerously far from its foundational objectivity. Yet Ramos sees it as part of his job – to ask the powerbrokers the tough questions that other reporters won’t. “I’m simply a journalist who asks questions,” he wrote on his blog soon after the incident. “And journalists have an obligation to take a stand when it comes to racism, discrimination, corruption, public lies, dictatorships and human rights violations.”

Image credit: Taylor Hill