Guest Column
English-language Newspapers Still Don't Recognize Latinos
- English-language Newspapers Still Don't Recognize Latinos
- By Marisa Trevino,
- Latina Lista
- July 6, 2007
The story of Eli Gutierrez, a North Texan Mexican-American artist
who spent his Fourth of July holiday finishing up a 17-hour walk
over 50 miles leaving notes in the mailboxes of city council
members and mayors to draw attention to discrimination against
Hispanics and the undocumented, was a frontpage story in the
Spanish-language newspaper
Al Dia.
The ironic thing was that while Eli's walk
was frontpage news on the Al Dia web site, the story didn't get
one mention on the newspaper's sister publication
The Dallas Morning News' web site the same day.
Is it because the English-language paper doesn't feel Hispanics
are their readers or that Hispanics only speak and read Spanish?
In all fairness, on the same day as the story
of Eli's walk, the newspaper didn't have any trouble printing two
prominent stories featuring Hispanics: one that dealt with how
many Hispanic homeowners are facing foreclosures on their homes
due to receiving
subprime loans and the other story about the
young Latino boy who had been sodomized with a metal pipe by a
white supremacist last year and who leapt to his death from a
Mexico-bound cruise ship over the weekend.
Both of these tragic stories are newsworthy but Eli's walk is just
as newsworthy to a Hispanic-reading audience who don't speak or
read Spanish.
The trouble is convincing newspapers like The Dallas Morning News
and others that have a Spanish-language product in its portfolio
that English-reading Hispanics enjoy reading about positive
stories about other Latinos — in English.
The real problem is that these newspapers don't feel Hispanics are
a part of their "core readers."
In an article titled
Damage Report that appears in this month's Columbia Journalism
Review, the authors profile The Dallas Morning News and the
aftermath of the layoffs and buyouts the newspaper staff has
undergone.
In the process, the newspaper's management made some key decisions
about who reads their core (English-language daily) product. It
doesn't bode well for Latinos:
In 2006, Moroney and Mong adopted a new strategy: focusing on the newspaper’s “core readers,” people who had subscribed to The Dallas Morning News for at least five years. They included older people, middle-aged news junkies, and people who love reading. They are wealthier and better educated than the general population.
That assumption leaves a lot of Latinos out
of the picture, and a big chunk of the local community.
Hispanics are often accused of segregating ourselves via language.
Yet for those Latinos who feel more comfortable in English,
English-language newspapers are doing the segregating by
committing a big disservice to those Latinos who could easily be
their most loyal readers - if they were just recognized as being
part of their core audience.
Eli should have left one more letter.
Latina Lista (www.latinalista.net/palabrafinal)
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)