nbclatino.com
To regular readers of Being Latino, it will come as no surprise that Latinos are underrepresented in many professions. A logical extension of this is the lack of Latino representation in the news; indeed, anyone who consciously inspects their nightly news show of preference, provided that it isn’t on a Spanish-language channel, will notice it.
Most of us have realized this, yet we’ve ignored it.
However, Extra!, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting’s monthly magazine, recently revealed some numbers that were slightly depressing and highly distressing. Whether you look at column writers, regular commentators, sources or “experts,” Latinos have among the lowest representation comparative to their population size.
Extra! reports that “Latinos are rarely turned to as ‘experts,’ the researchers, academics and analysts who add insight to a story.” Our numbers among sources is equally low, increasing slightly when the “newsmaker” is Latino. Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination back in 2009 garnered 28 percent of Latino sources in stories by the New York Times. However, over half of those Latino sources were Sotomayor and her friends and family.
Even when Latinos make up a majority of the population in a city, they are still underrepresented in their local newspapers. For example, the Miami Herald, in a city that is 70 percent Latino, only manages to employ 27 percent Latinos in their newsroom.
Extra! attributes part of this gap in representation to the disparity between Latinos working in Spanish- and English-language news shows. Latinos have supported large and prosperous Spanish-language media. Univision, which has a predominantly Spanish line-up, is the fourth-largest network in the United States, according to NPR.
And according to a Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism 2011 report, “Spanish-language media tended to fare better overall than their mainstream English-language counterparts” during this recession.
Still, we are also seeing an increase in bilingual or English media aimed at Latinos. In the news world, major players have created separate pages to specifically target a Latino audience. Among these are The Huffington Post’s Latino Voices, NBC Latino and Fox News Latino. Univision has forayed into this territory by creating Univision News, a English-language Tumblr site that is clearly meant to appeal to younger, often bilingual or English-preferring Latinos.
As we are reminded of the importance of the media in affecting our view on issues, it is important for those lacking representation to not just create their own media, but also reach the mainstream audience and have our viewpoints fully included in the nationwide conversation.
so what are the fields that latinos ARE going into?
This is why you also need Latino professionals working in all industries (including public relations and media). We need to be working in the industries and pushing these stories
Who controls the media? It’s not white Christian conservative Republican males that’s for sure – so you can’t blame this one on them, no matter what crazy things you come up to say. Plus, any Latino that has conservative and libertarian views can even forget about going into any Main Stream Media because the powers that be – the people who control the media want those Latinos to fall under the Democrat party talking points of Latinos as underprivileged and discriminated brown people that can only improve their lot if more government control came into their lives. The sad part is that many Latinos believe this garbage.
Excuse me, you can stop blaming parties.
The reason latinos don’t go into the media and stuff is our parents. Do you know how often my mother told me not to major in anything “artsy” and the only options i had was doctor, lawyer, engineer or civil service? Do you know how often that happens to Latinos all the time? Very often.
And our parents have a right to be scared because they are unstable fields. It’s risky to get into those fields because alot of people do it and don’t succeed.
But I think if more Latinos were encouraged to go into those fields, they would be openly accepted.
I majored in art and design and my parents where OK with it.
I agree Vikki. I wasn’t allowed to major in Psychology, Sociology or any field related but Biology or any science field. In the end, I end up hating it so much. Even with my sisters, my father was the same way. My middle sister couldn’t hack Bio that she ended up doing Criminal Justice and plans on getting her masters degree in something with helping trouble teens while my younger sis is able to hack the science field. I really did wish my parents especially father would have respect my choice……