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May 13, 2005
Session: Media Consolidation - Federico Subervi, Latinos and Media Project
Federico Subervi, Latinos and Media Project:
Has been studying how Latino/a issues are covered in the news. In the last year less than 1% of broadcast TV covered these issues. I come into this arena of media conglomeration discussion because a few years ago I was asked to write a position paper against Univision.
For some of you Latinos is just a generic statement of a population you may not be familiar with. There are 40 million Latinos in US, which is only 14% of the population. Latinos now outnumber African-Americans. In some communities this is not 14%, it's 20, 30, 40, 50 60%. In some communities where it may only be 40% the percentage of Latino children in the public school system may be as much as 70%, because others are going to private school. This is not just Chicago, LA, New York, Miami and the usual suspects. It's all over Atlanta, South Carolina, the Midwest and elsewhere. Often Latinos are the largest minority groups in an area.
With this comes marketing, advertising and media directed to them, not necessarily by them. Why are these populations so important. For some they may be a nuisance or problem. For many of these populations these are the margins of victory in a close election. We know that in the 2000 election, if Gore had done what Clinton had done, it would have been different. Gore abandoned the South Florida contingent before he should have.
These Latinos are being reached by systematic campaigns by both party. Unfortunately more sophisticated and systematic by the Republican National Committee and trickling down to their local. 75% of Latinos are Spanish speaking, 1/3 of which are primarily Spanish speaking, who can be reached by spanish media. Today there are 19 daily newspaper, five years ago only 6. There are over 550 weekly newspapers in Spanish, many are community owned, increasingly corporate owned.
Spanish-language radio started with home-owned stations. Spanish broadcasts started on the off-hours of English stations, which became successful enough to buy stations. Now they are corporate owned.
Now Telemundo is owned by NBC. Univision, a major company, once owned by hallmark, is corporate owned.
I was more in documenting history of this media, but I got into the corporate element with the Spanish Broadcast System asked me to write a position paper regarding the Univision and Hispanic Broadcasting System merger. My colleagues all agreed it was bad, but the FCC approved it.
When the FCC made its decision, they said that they were not treating Hispanics as a separate group to be considered apart. yet, they didn't take into consideration that for its first 20 years, Univision had been saying "we are a unique market." Univision is accessed only by part of the market, not the whole US market.
The major owner of Univision is the major contributor for the Republican Party in California. The reporters don't take direct orders, but the news management know who they have to be responsive to. They do a better job of covering the Latino community than the networks. But when it comes to what they cover, and how critically, it's a different story.
We need to include the study of the Spanish media -- they do make a difference. We must include Univision, Telemundo and the spanish language radio stations. If we are thinking of democracy it has to include the whole society, which includes the US Spanish-speaking population.
Posted by paul at May 13, 2005 02:49 PM