How Journalists Can Change What TV Says About Latinos
*This article singles-out journalists, but the ideas, lessons and suggestions apply to everyone – we’re all storytellers and “content producers” now. Hat-tip to Taquista Melissa Salas Blair for sending us this story. VL
By Tara Garcia Mathewson, Education Writers Association
A study in the 1990s found less than 1 percent of the leading English-language TV news broadcast stories were either about or related to Latinos. A similar study, conducted from 2008 to 2014 by retired Kent State University journalism professor Federico Subervi, found there was no change in that number. Giving the lunch keynote address for the Education Writers Association’s second annual Spanish-Language Media Convening in Orlando, Subervi told the gathered reporters that two-thirds of stories that were about Latinos discussed either immigration or crime.
[pullquote]“Latinos are presented primarily as people who have problems or who cause problems.”[/pullquote]“Latinos are presented primarily as people who have problems or who cause problems,” said Subervi, who serves as an advisor to the Child Trends Hispanic Institute and secretary of the board of directors for the Latino Public Radio consortium.
The lack of positive Latino protagonists in the news, on television and in movies, as well as the relative dominance of negative models, teaches Latino children how to think about themselves and Latino culture. Many of these children, Subervi said, do not have a reference point for seeing their own culture in a positive light.
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[Photo courtesy of Education Writers Association]
