La Pulla
La Pulla is a Colombian political, satirical and opinion journalism program on YouTube, owned by the national newspaper El Espectador. It was created by María Paulina Baena, Juan Carlos Rincón, Daniel Salgar, Santiago La Rotta and Juan David Torres, it is hosted by Rincón and was formerly hosted by Baena.
History
La PullaIn 2016, La Pulla uploaded a video called "Ahora resulta que si hay apagón va a ser culpa nuestra" in the context of caused by El Niño. The Colombian government made a response to the video called "La Contrapulla".
On the eve of the 2018 Colombian presidential election, La Pulla made a video called "Gustavo Petro NO merece ser presidente". The video was strongly criticized by the followers of La Pulla, with one of the most notable criticisms made by YouTuber Lalis Smil, who started the video saying that "When says that is a despot, selfish and more, it is just talking about his personal manner of being. I've seen Gustavo hugging indigenous, kids, recyclers. I don't think in any moment he has been acting like a despot, or hitting somebody on the head".
On December 6, 2018,, presenter at the time of a program called Los Puros Criollos, broadcast on the free-to-air public TV channel Señal Colombia, made a video with La Pulla called "ÚLTIMA HORA: la ley que van a aprobar a escondidas" where they criticized the TIC law, a public law that, they stated, "would end with the public television in Colombia". A few hours after La Pulla published the video, Rivas reported on the social media website Twitter that Juan Pablo Bieri, business manager of RTVC at the time, decided to quit Los Puros Criollos from the Señal Colombia dayparting. The decision was understood by the fans of Los Puros Criollos and La Pulla as "a way to censor Rivas as punishment for participating in the La Pulla video". After the furor, in January 2019, Bieri announced his intention to resign from the business manager position of RTVC, which was accepted on February 1, 2019.
In 2020, La Pulla uploaded a video sponsored by Carros más Seguros called "¡CUIDADO! Nos están vendiendo carros peligrosos" where they said that the Mazda 2 model sold in Colombia did not meet the global minimum security standards for cars. Nobuyuki Sato, president of Mazda Colombia, sent a letter to La Pulla asking for an apology. In the letter, he stated that the Mazda 2 model shown in the video was sold in Mexico, not in Colombia. La Pulla, in response to the letter, changed the description of the video by adding an apology clarifying that the Mazda 2 model shown in the video was not sold in Colombia, but in Mexico. The company responded a couple days after the La Pulla apology, stating that "For Mazda of Colombia, the security of their cars is a priority", showing the technical data of the Mazda 2 model in Colombia.
In March 2021, Cali's mayor Jorge Iván Ospina accused the program on Twitter of slandering him after they released a video criticizing his administration. Ospina said he did not see the video before writing the accusations and he would not see it anyway, he explicitly said on a Tweet "I'm not gonna watch the so-called Pulla for the sake of my mental health". The program responded to Ospina saying that "He did not see the video, but he knows it has obliques and calumnies".
On December 2022, Baena, the main face of the program up until that moment, announced she would part ways with El Espectador and would thus leave La Pulla, leaving Rincón to host the program by himself.
Reception
Daniela Cristancho Serrano from Directo Bogotá, a magazine owned by the Pontifical Xavierian University, said that La Pulla "uses colloquial language, irony, and dramatization " and said that the team of the program is "irreverent."The program has been criticized on social media for its vulgar tone. In an article published in April 2017 by Nathalia Acero in the section El librepensador of the website of the Universidad Externado de Colombia called "Lo malo, lo bueno y lo bien feo de La Pulla", she states: