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Joseph Torres
Communications Director,
NAHJ
E-mail: jtorres@nahj.org
Phone: 202/662-7143
Fax: 202/662-7144
Web: http://www.nahj.org/

The 2001 Year in Review:
Week of December 31, 2001

The U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled Jan. 16 that the Federal Communications Commission’s Equal Employment Opportunity regulations were unconstitutional, citing that the rules unlawfully put pressure on broadcasters to recruit people of color for job openings.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration found Jan. 16 that the number of television stations owned by Hispanics and other people of color decreased between 1998 and 2000 while the number of radio stations increased. The number of full-power television stations owned by Latinos decreased from six in 1998 to one in 2000. Overall, Hispanics own 0.1% of all television stations and 1.8% of all radio stations.

NETWORKBROWNOUT:
Week of December 17, 2001

The percentage of stories about Latinos that aired on the evening network newscasts declined from 1.3% in 1999 to 0.53% in 2000, according to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ 2001 “Network Brownout” report.

The report found that out of 16,000 news stories aired on ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN last year, only 84 were about Latinos. CNN was included in the study for the first time this year.  In 1999, out of12,000 news stories, only 162 were about Latinos.

NBC-TELEMUNDO MERGER CHALLENGED:
Week of December 10, 2001

The National Latino Media Council has filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission to deny approval of the pending NBC purchase of Telemundo, the nation's second largest Spanish-language network.

The council is a coalition of Latino civil rights and media organizations including the National Council of La Raza, the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the Puerto Rican League Defense and Education Fund, among others.

NEW EDITOR:
Week of December 03, 2001

El Paso native Carlos Sánchez is named editor of the Waco Tribune-Herald in Waco, Texas, replacing Bob Lott, who is retiring on Dec. 3.

Sánchez was state editor for the Austin American-Statesman. Both papers are owned by the Atlanta-based Cox Newspapers.

Sánchez becomes only the fifth editor of the Tribune-Herald since 1917. Lott had been its editor since 1979. In addition to the Statesman, Sánchez, a graduate of the University of Texas, has worked for the El Paso Herald-Post, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Washington Post.

ROSADO NAMED TO TRANSITION TEAM:
Week of November 26, 2001

New York City Mayor-Elect Mike Bloomberg named 56 people to his transition team Nov. 19, including El Diario-La Prensa Publisher Rossana Rosado. She was one of nine Latinos selected for his team.

Bloomberg captured 50% of the Latino vote in his win over Democratic challenger Mark Green earlier this month.

Rosado told Weekly Report that her selection to the transition team is recognition of the role El Diario plays in the community. She added that one of the paper's missions to empower the city's Latino community.

LATINO ELECTED:
Week of November 19, 2001

Rick Rodríguez, executive editor of The Sacramento Bee, was elected treasurer-designate of the American Society of Newspaper Editors during the association's fall board meeting in Minneapolis Nov. 6. He will assume the treasurer's position in April and become  the first Latino president of the association  in 2005. ASNE is a professional association of 830 editors representing about 350 U.S. daily newspapers.

NEW DIGS:
Week of November 12, 2001

Two enduring Hispanic media entities held open house events to show off their new headquarters last week.

In Austin, Texas, the nine-year-old weekly radio news magazine Latino USA celebrated moving into its new headquarters at 2609 University Ave., Suite 3108, Austin TX 78705 on Nov. 9. Its half-hour program airs on 200 stations, with about half broadcast on

AD DOLLARS: 
Week of November 05, 2001

New York City's Univisión and Telemundo stations have received only $2 million of the $28 million spent on television campaign ads through the end of September by the city's mayoral candidates, according to the research firm Competitive Media Reports.

Republican mayoral candidate Michael Bloomberg has spent $1.7 million with the Spanish-language stations. Democratic candidate Mark Green has not spent any advertising dollars with the stations.

BROWNOUT REPORT:
Week of October 01, 2001

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists has delayed the release of its sixth annual Network Brownout report due to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. No date has been set to release the study.

The NAHJ has posted on its Web site (www.nahj.org) stories written and reported by Latino journalists covering the tragedy. Included on the site are links to articles written by New York Daily News columnist Juan González and The Arizona Republic's Ricardo Pimentel, and a first-person account from CNN Producer Rose Arce.

FLAG-RAISING:
Week of September 24, 2001

Numbed by the images he was photographing that detailed the destruction of the World Trade Center, White Plains, N.Y., Journal News photographer Ricky Flores at first could not understand why the editors of his paper were so interested in one particular photo that he took of three New York City firemen raising a pole with the U.S. flag amid the ruins and rubble.

• An Interview with Ricky Flores

EL DIARIO:
Week of September 13, 2001

The offices of El Diario-La Prensa remained closed following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in New York City. The office was located about a mile from the center. Evelyn Hernández, El Diario editorial page editor, told Weekly Report the staff saw the second plane crash into the south tower from the office windows. She added that staff was anxious to return to work although they were not sure when that would happen. Hernández said El Diario editor Gerson Borrero and publisher Rosanna Rossado were unable to make it to the office but helped steer the paper's editorial efforts by phone from a Bronx television studio.

COLUMNIST:
Week of September 03, 2001

Univisión anchor María Elena Salinas has signed a deal with King Features to write a weekly column that will appear in both English and Spanish. Salinas told Weekly Report that she will write mostly about issues affecting Latinos but will also comment on other subjects from a Hispanic perspective. The veteran Univisión anchor currently writes a weekly column for Univision.com and provides a daily minute-and-a-half commentary for Radio Unica.

VIEQUES:
Week of August 13, 2001

A photographer for the Associated Press was hit by a rubber bullet fired by U.S. Navy security personnel while covering protests against the Navy's resumption of maneuvers on the island of Vieques.

Navy officials said tear gas and rubber bullets were fired because protesters were breaking into a restricted area. But AP Photographer Tomás Van Houtryve said protesters were only shaking the fence and yelling at the Navy when they were fired on and that he was running away from the guards when he was shot.

INTERNET ACCESS:
Week of August 06, 2001

Half of all Hispanics who are 18 years or older have used the Internet. This compares with 58% of whites and 43% of African Americans, according to "Hispanics and the Internet," a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

The report found that while more Hispanic Internet newcomers are women, an equal amount of Hispanic men and women have access to the Internet. Sixty-one percent of Hispanic Internet users are 34 years old or younger. Also, half of all Hispanics who are on-line live in households with incomes less than $40,000 and have to "stretch" their resources to buy computers and pay for Internet access.

WAN REPORT:
Week of July 30, 2001

Eight journalists have been killed in Colombia and two in México so far this year according to the Paris-based World Association of Newspapers. WAN reported that 33 journalists were killed worldwide, up from 30 last year. The association, which defends press freedom worldwide, represents 17,000 newspapers. Its membership includes 63 national newspaper associations and 17 news agencies.

GAINS CLAIMED:
Week of July 23, 2001

Latinos accounted for most of the growth of people of color working in newsrooms at local English-language television stations over the past year, according to the annual survey of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. Just over half -- 52.7% -- of all of the 1,387 operating, non-satellite television stations completed the survey. The figures were released this month in Communicator magazine.

LATINO CORRESPONDENTS:
Week of July 16, 2001

The visibility of Hispanic network correspondents reporting for the evening news has lagged drastically behind all other ethnic groups from 1983 to 2000, according to a study released June 21 by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Telecommunications at Arizona State University.

NAHJ CONVENTION:
Week of July 09, 2001

Nearly 1,600 journalists and media executives -- a record number -- attended the National Association of Hispanic Journalists' 19th annual convention in Phoenix June 20-23. Among convention highlights were a plenary session on U.S.-México relations featuring México Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda, and the induction of Hispanic Link publisher Charlie Ericksen, pioneer Southwest radio journalist Peter Moraga and retired Tucson print media executive Edith Auslander into the NAHJ Hall of Fame.

QUOTING RAY:
Week of June 25, 2001

The summer edition of The Nieman Reports devotes a section to Latinos in journalism, written entirely by Latino journalists. One of the authors, Ray Suárez of the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, shares his observations on the "potential and paradox" of Latinos in journalism.

DOWNWARD TREND:
Week of June 18, 2001

Latino employment at seven television stations broadcasting in New York City declined from 12.2% to 11.2% between 1997 and 2000, finds a study released June 14 by the New York chapter of the National Hispanic Media Coalition.

A total of 2,000 persons are employed at the stations, 224 of them Latino. Prepared by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the study's authors comment that while the percentage of Latinos in the business shrank, New York City's Latino population grew 30% during the last decade, up from 2.2 million to 2.9 million. Latinos make up 27% of the city population. The Latino population in nearby New Jersey grew by 51% from 739,861 to 1.1 million.

'AMEXICA':
Week of June 11, 2001

Time magazine has devoted its June 11 edition to examining the effects and influences the "vanishing" U.S.-México border has had on both countries.With a cover titled "Amexica," the magazine spends 34 pages detailing how the countries are growing more dependent on each other because of business and cultural influences. The issue contains stories examining the effects of the border on the city of Laredo, Texas, the use of coyotes to smuggle migrants into the United States and politics in México.

HISPANIC 100:
Week of June 04, 2001

Six national experts on the Hispanic media will select the top100 Hispanic journalists in the United States, all of whom will be honored at the Hispanic Media 100 gala in Miami later this year. The experts are Mario Diament, associate professor at Florida International University in Miami, Nicolás Kanellos, director of the recovery project at the University of Houston, Jim Medina, managing editor at Hispanic Business Magazine, Oscar Somoza, professor at the University of Denver, Beatriz García, executive business editor at The Miami Herald and Helena Berdote, research executive at Hispanic Trends.

COLUMN:
Week of May 21, 2001

The Catawba Valley Neighbors, a three-times-a-week section in The Charlotte Observer, began publishing once again a weekly column in Spanish that summarizes the week's events for the area's Spanish-speaking residents. Dan Duffey, the Observer's Catawba bureau chief, told Weekly Report the Valley Neighbors began translating the column into Spanish last fall but stopped in February "to get some of the bugs out." The column started up once again on May 13.

DNC ADS:
Week of May 07, 2001

The Democratic National Committee has launched its first-ever Spanish-language media campaign during an off-election year, criticizing President's Bush first 100 days in office. María Cardona, DNC spokesperson, told Weekly Report that the week-long $80,000 media campaign began airing on Telemundo and Univisión May 3 in New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Virginia and Central Florida. "Working families in the Hispanic community have been left off the Bush Administration's list of top priorities its first 100 days in office," said.

BlackPressUSA.Com:
Week of April 30, 2001

BlackPressUSA.com has removed a Charlotte Post article from its Web site after receiving E-mail letters protesting that it stereotyped Latinos. The Post published a story in late March on the reaction of the city's black residents to the area's growing Hispanic population.The Hispanic population in North Carolina grew 394%, up from 76,726 in 1990 to 378,963 in 2000.

PULITZERS AWARDED:
Week of April 23, 2001

Latino staffers were members of reporting teams at four newspapers that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize April 16. Associated Press photographer Alan Díaz also received the prestigious recognition.Twenty Latinos on The Miami Herald staff were members of the reporting team that won the Pulitzer for Breaking News for its coverage of the federal raid in Miami that removed Elián González from his relatives and reunited the Cuban boy with his father.

Despite mercurial population growth, Latinos working in the newsrooms of U.S. English-language daily newspapers dropped both in number and as a percentage of total staff last year. It marked the only decline in the two decades such records have been kept.