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In the latest installment of Sinceramente, our editors-in-chief, Vanessa Vallejo and Orlando Avendaño, talk with host Pablo Kleinman about the cancellation of the only remaining conservative radio program on KTNQ, owned by the Hispanic network Univision, a traditionally left-wing media outlet.
Kleinman’s program, titled Radio California Libre, was the only talk show dedicated to political debate from a conservative perspective heard on California Hispanic radio stations and lasted just over a year, until it was abruptly canceled in January 2021.
Canceled for his ideas
For a while, Kleinman didn’t want to tell the story because, he says, he wanted to believe that Univision executives weren’t canceling him for ideological reasons. “It was hard to believe, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt,” he explained.
Originally, Kleinman recounts, Univision’s intention was for his show to have a “center-right” perspective, and the proposal was an alternative vision in a different California, much more to the left than in the past.
“I really didn’t think what happened was going to happen because I was doing my job,” Pablo tells us, who also admits to not knowing the reasons why Univision, a liberal network, wanted to offer a conservative perspective.
“Unfortunately, it seems they couldn’t handle it,” Kleinman says, and he believes that his departure from the air was related to his coverage of the 2020 elections and the mentions he made about irregularities during the process.
When Vanessa Vallejo brought up the issue of self-censorship, something she considers even worse than censorship, Kleinman affirmed that this is a recurrent practice in Univision, as in the left-wing media.
“There is a lot of [self-censorship] and what happens is that, on the one hand, there is self-censorship of those who do not think the same as the management,” and on the other hand, there are the opinions that become the flag of the editorial line and “they believe they own the truth,” said Kleinman in this regard.
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