UPDATE

MAYOR DENIES KNOWLEDGE
OF GETTING QUESTIONS

 

EXCLUSIVE

A DIFFERENT KIND OF MEDIA "RELATIONSHIP"
SHAPING THE MESSAGE:
VILLARAIGOSA STYLE

"Villaraigosa a su lado"
( VILLARAIGOSA ON YOUR SIDE )

LA MAYOR WAS GETTING THE
QUESTIONS IN ADVANCE
FROM SPANISH LANGUAGE
TV NEWS OUTLET UNIVISION

(July 25th, 2007 7:50AM PST)

BY ERIC LONGABARDI

ERSNews has exclusively obtained e-mails documenting that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was receiving written questions in advance, sometimes days in advance, before television interviews that were conducted on the Univision Los Angeles based television station KMEX-TV34. The questions were then asked during on-air interviews conducted by the stations in-studio anchors for a segment known as "Villaraigosa a su lado", which translates from Spanish as "Villaraigosa on your side".

The so-called broadcast "interviews" were conducted regularly on Wednesdays each week in 2006 and through mid-2007.

The questions sent to the Mayor were represented to the public as impromptu-unscripted questions. ERSNews had uncovered they were anything but that. The topics ran the gamut of issues concerning Villaraigosa’s job as LA’s mayor.

ERSNews has learned that the questions were provided to the Mayor in advance via a direct link. That link was the Mayor’s Deputy press secretary Diana Rubio. Rubio was working directly with the Executive Producer of Univision and others at KMEX, including at the time the station’s Vice President of News. Other news staff was well aware of the communications and the intertwined relationship the station had developed with the Mayor’s office. According to sources familiar with the situation, the mayor’s office exerted extensive influence and sway in insuring the Mayor was not put in any light other than a favorable one, something Univision accommodated routinely.

ERSNews has the obtained emails, parts of which are translated below (the verbatim text in Spanish as communicated between Univision news executives and the Mayor’s deputy press secretary Ms. Rubio can be seen here:

Both the May 22nd and May 9th 2006 emails open with the following statements and follow with the questions the Mayor would be asked in the televised interview.

"Here are the questions for the segment tomorrow on Wednesday"

"Here are the questions for this week"

Since the Mayor has had to deal with the fallout of his relationship with Telemundo reporter/anchor Mirthala Salinas since July 3rd, the Mayor has not appeared on the KMEX/Univision "Villaraigosa on your side" segment. The segment has been a regular fixture since early 2006. In the past the mayor has taken part in segments from on location around Los Angeles and even when he was out of town.

ERSNews asked USC professor of journalism Joe Saltzman his opinion of the kind of ethical issues that this practice raises. According to Saltzman, the issues were a bit different for the Mayor and his media staff than for the Univision/KMEX journalists.

Saltzman told ERSNews that Villaraigosa had achieved what many would call "rock star" status. His handlers had special leverage in dealing with the media before the Telemundo/Salinas affair was revealed. As for the ethics of Univision providing the Mayor the questions in advance for what was purported to be an "impromptu" interview with their stations anchors, that Saltzman told ERSNews was "very very poor judgment"

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