Guest Post: How Newsrooms Can Better Cover U.S. Latinos
As the U.S.
Latino population rises, news outlets are struggling to tailor
their coverage to the many national and socioeconomic backgrounds
that make up this large minority group.
Already, nearly one in five Americans is Latino and a quarter of
newborns in the United States come from such households.
Nevertheless, many non-Hispanic Americans harbor misconceptions
about what that broad cultural term ‘Latino’ means—and media
organizations might bear part of the blame. News media
organizations also might be failing to distribute their content
in ways that sync with the news consumption habits of
Latinos.
These volleys of criticism were central to a presentation by
three Latino media leaders who spoke last week at the
Online News Association annual conference in Atlanta.
Of the roughly 53 million Latinos currently living in the United
States, two-thirds are natural born citizens. And though 65
percent of Latinos have Mexican backgrounds, millions do not:
Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Cuba and the Dominican Republic round
out the top five U.S. territories and countries of origin for
U.S. Latinos.
These differences in backgrounds can play out locally in ways
that run counter to national trends. In Washington, D.C., three
in 10 Latinos identify with El Salvador—double the share of those
with Mexican heritage. Nearly one in 10 Washingtonians is Latino,
according to
city data collected in 2011. Individuals who identify with
Mexico comprise 78 percent of the Los Angeles area’s large Latino
population, according to
Pew Charitable Trust research. However, that ethnic group
represents a much smaller percentage of the New York City area
Latino population—just 12 percent. The dominant Latino group in
that region is Puerto Ricans at 28 percent, followed by
Dominicans at 21 percent.
These variations have significant ramifications for what news
content might connect better with local audiences, the panelists
note. A national tragedy in Mexico may resonate more with readers
in Los Angeles than in New York. Likewise, Cuban coverage might
not capture the large Latino readership in Houston as it might in
Miami. I can think of several more: For education reporters, a
natural disaster in one Latin American country may explain an
uptick in cases of distraught or absent students who are grieving
over harmed relatives.
Despite the many “shades of brown” as Robert Hernandez, a
professor of media at University of Southern California and one
of the speakers at the ONA session, called the Latino population,
enough similarities exist for newsmakers to take notice. Latinos
are the youngest demographic group in the United States, with an
average age of 27 compared with 42 for whites. And many more
Latinos than whites ages 18-35 live at home, the panelists
said.
I see several takeaways from these figures: Education reporters,
for example, may want to highlight not only the average household
income of Latino students but the size of the household, as well.
Another wrinkle to consider when writing about education and
Latinos: The multigenerational setup prevalent in Latino
households might explain lower rates of pre-K enrollment. As
“under-matching” becomes a larger theme in higher education
reporting, how much do the family dynamics integral to many
Latino households impel talented students to attend a local
university rather than a highly competitive institution hundreds
of miles away?
Minding the relative juvenescence of Latinos might also change
some of the content delivery models of news outlets use to reach
these groups, said panelist Charo Henriquez, who’s the innovation
editor at a Puerto Rico media group. While fewer Latino
households (62 percent) possess internet connectivity at home
than the rest of the U.S. population (76 percent), Latinos are
more likely than whites to connect to the internet via mobile
phones. News sites with smartphone adaptability are better geared
to reach Latino readers, the panelists note.
The Latino audience also contains diverse sensibilities in their
choices of preferred language when consuming media. On local
matters, there’s a tendency among Latino consumers to choose
content in Spanish, the panelists said. However, one-third of
Latinos consume news in English only; eight in 10 absorb the news
in both languages.
The local angle is important, the panelists say. In many Latino
communities, a Spanish media organization already exists that has
brand recognition and trust among the community. English-language
outlets should partner with those under-the-radar Spanish outlets
to expand coverage and generate buy-in from the Latino audience,
the panelists said.
How not to go about it: Hernandez skewered the Hartford Courant
for running a Spanish-language version of its site that merely
consisted of its English copy filtered through Google
Translate.
Another takeaway from the session: While having minorities in the
newsroom might expand and improve coverage important to Latino
audiences, outlets might still overlook key stories because of
insignificant interaction with low-income Latinos. One social
media commenter who followed the panel wrote, “I take public
transit every day (I live in LA!) You get story ideas on buses
you can’t get otherwise! Meet sources too.”
Have a question, comment or concern for the Educated Reporter?
Email EWA public editor Emily Richmond at erichmond@ewa.org.
Follow her on Twitter: @EWAEmily.
Have a question, comment or concern for the Educated Reporter? Contact Emily Richmond. Follow her on Twitter @EWAEmily.