Ethnic Media Closer to People
NCM Online, Eduardo Stanley, Posted: Jun 06, 2001
A small Latino community close to San Diego asked the area’s Catholic bishop to provide a priest to conduct baptisms, weddings, and "quinceañeras." The community rebuilt and embellished the small church waiting for the new padre. He never arrived because the bishop refused to assign one.
This is but one story in the ethnic media not seen in the mainstream. Speaking in a panel this month, prominent Hispanic journalists agreed that the ethnic media was closer to the diverse communities enabling it to report stories deeply affecting their people.
As part of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Annual Convention in San Diego, California, June 11-16, New California Media organized a panel -- Latino Community Stories The Mainstream Media Missed in 2001. The participants were Maria Eraña, producer, Radio Bilingue, Fresno; Jonathan Sanchez, associate publisher, Eastern Group Publications, Los Angeles; Jose Luis Sierra, assistant managing editor, La Opinion, Los Angeles and Carlos Gonzalez, reporter, KBNT-Channel 17 (Univision), San Diego. The panel was moderated by Mandalit del Barco, reporter, National Public Radio.
For Gonzalez, the border is a constant source of news stories. He told the story of the padre who never arrived. Gonzalez said that traditional good relationship with the bishop's office cooled after he aired the story. He learned that an English TV station followed on taping interviews about this issue but they never aired it, perhaps under pressure from the bishop.
"It’s about a small community, but the story is representative of the feelings, beliefs and culture of the people," said Gonzalez. Eraña agreed that the best stories were ones reported by members of the community. "For instance," she said, "former braceros or their family members who listen to our radio brought us the issue of the money owed to them by American and Mexican banks from the Bracero Program (1946-1962) so we started covering this story four years ago. "
Radio Bilingue also covered stories such as sending money to Mexico, the problems of small Mexican farmers, African influence in Mexican culture, and the struggles of undocumented students attending college. One story reported that students had to pay as foreign students even though they resided in California for the most part of their lives.
Eraña described another story in which a Mexican working father from Orange County received a video camara as a present. He happily videotaped almost everything around him. Wanting to show his family in Mexico everything about his town, he also videotaped some downtown areas unaware that one of the buildings he caught on video was the local federal building. After the videotaping, he was stopped by security guards who let him go but upon arriving home, he was arrested by the FBI who were on alert after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The man is now involved in a legal battle that has drained his savings and affected him and his family emotionally.
Both mainstream media and ethnic media share interest about issues such as democracy, AIDS, but the difference is the angle of coverage, the point of view, said Sierra. "We have something they don’t have. We know our culture, our people, so we can cover stories involving the Latino community with this advantage," he said. "On the other hand, they have more resources, they can work longer on a story, so we have used wisely our knowledge of our people and our skills to present stories about our community and are professionally written."
Sanchez said that reporting about our communities is history in the making. "We portray our communities, our people like nobody else," said Sanchez. "We are proud of what we do; we take stand on issues; and we also break stories that mainstream media usually don’t bother to cover."
For Sanchez, the difference comes from the kind of communication and relationships the ethnic media has with its audience. "They call us, they give us tips; we live there; we are there." He also said the local people rely on community media outlets such as his. "They trust us and they also criticize us. We welcome their comments because they help us to improve our product."
Eraña agreed with Sanchez and said ethnic media have to encourage thier audience to come forward with stories and suggestions. "We have to support community media; we bring people to the mainstream," said Eraña.
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