| TOP STORIES:
The international custody struggle over Elián González provided enough human drama to be chosen as the nation's second-biggest news story of the year 2000 in an Associated Press survey of editors released in late December.
Bobbing in an innertube, the five-year-old Cuban boy was rescued off Florida on Thanksgiving Day 1999. A chain of court decisions and public relations maneuvers by the boy's family, political players and U.S. Department of Justice were covered daily by the press for half a year, until Elián was finally returned to his father in Cuba last June 28. On April 22, federal agents had staged a raid on the home of the boy's Miami relatives to remove him from their custody.
The drama ran second to another Florida story -- month-long battle for that state's electoral votes to determine who would reside in the White House for the next four years.
OTHER BIG NEWS:
There were a number of other significant news events involving Hispanics last year which deserved - but didn't necessarily receive - broad media attention. Among them:
- Pappas Telecasting Companies and Mexico's TV Azteca announced in September the formation of a new U.S. Spanish-language network, Azteca America, to compete in the United States with Univisión and Telemundo.
- The Federal Communications Commission announced in January that it would make available as many as a thousand low-power FM radio stations to community coalitions, non-profits and other groups that would serve the public interest.
- In March, "Harvest of Empire," a groundbreaking book on the condition and history of Latinos in the Americas written by New York Daily News columnist Juan González was published by Viking. It's now in its 3rd printing. The book wil be published in paperback this month.
Other 2000 highlights:
JANUARY -- Hispanic leaders applauded the new equal employment opportunity rules issued by the FCC. They also lauded the agency's announcement calling for the creation of additional low-power FM stations, designed to reach ignored radio audiences.
FEBRUARY -- A Southern Illinois University-Carbondale study found Latinos make up only 3% of all on-air correspondents on ABC, CBS and NBC.
MARCH -- Pressing for pay parity with English-language TV newsrooms, employees at Univisión-owned KFTV in Fresno, Calif., ended a 31-day hunger strike by ratifying a contract with the station which boosted wages and benefits...More than 100 Mexican and U.S. Hispanic journalists identified and discussed common concerns at a three-day conference in Mexico City coordinated by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists Region 5. Vicente Fox, a candidate for Mexico's presidency at the time, responded frankly to their questions...The National Association of Hispanic Publications released its annual Hispanic media print survey and found that the circulation of Hispanic publications grew to 36 million in 1999, a 2.4 million gain over 1998. It also found that the industry employed 11,873 workers, 1,300 more than in 1998.
APRIL -- The American Society of Newspaper Editors' annual diversity survey found that the percentage of Latino employees in newsrooms of U.S. dailies edged from 3.5% in 1998 to 3.7% in 1999...Walt Swanston resigned as executive director of UNITY: Journalists of Color..Three comic strips by Latinos that focus on U.S. Latino characters and culture, broke into U.S. mainstream funny pages. Universal Press Syndicate's Baldo, by Héctor Cantú and Carlos Castellanos, was launched in 100 mainstream dailies. The others were Lalo Alcaraz's La Cucaracha and Peter Ramírez's Raising Héctor.
MAY -- Sacramento Bee reporter Marcos Bretón co-authored the autobiography
of Sammy Sosa.
JUNE -- Cecilia Alvear was elected president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists during the association's 18th annual convention in Houston. Texas Gov. George W. Bush spoke at the convention
JULY -- The Radio and Television News Directors Association agreed to provide statistics on the percentage of Latinos working at English-language TV stations in addition to providing figures on the percentage of Hispanics working at all stations, including Spanish-language ones...NAHJ sent 10 members on fellowships to Mexico to gain a deeper knowledge of the country's social, political and cultural mores. They interviewed key government officials and participated in a journalism conference with colleagues from Latin America.
AUGUST -- The Hispanic Newspaper Network, based in Van Nuys, Calif., filed a lawsuit against several Madison Avenue ad agencies over the lack of federal contract dollars they spent on advertising with Latino publications...The Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility called on the Federal Communications Commission to deny the AOL-Time Warner merger.
SEPTEMBER -- A three-judge Federal District Court of Appeals panel in Washington, D.C., heard arguments on the Federal Communications Commission's proposed Equal Employment Opportunity regulations...The NAHJ released its annual "Network Brownout" report which found that news stories about Latinos made up 1.3% of all stories that aired on nightly newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC in 1999...UNITY: Journalists of Color announced the third-ever UNITY convention will be held in Washington, D.C., in 2004...Arte Público Press released the tome Hispanic Periodicals in the United States, Origins to 1960: A Brief History and Comprehensive Bibliography.
OCTOBER -- The Spanish-language daily El Diario, fwith Latin American
investor support made its debut in Miami-Dade.
NOVEMBER -- Reflecting new attention to Hispanic population growth in the South, The Shelbyville Time Gazette in Tennessee began printing two pages in Spanish every Friday...The U.S. District Court of Puerto Rico denied a request made by 11 journalists to dismiss charges against them for trespassing on a Vieques island naval base in June while covering an anti-Navy protest....More than 100 workers accepted a four-year contract agreement with Univisión flagship station KMEX in Los Angeles, following a strike over pay equity and sharing technology...Latina Magazine receives a $20 million investment to transform the company into a multimedia outlet.
DECEMBER -- UNITY: Journalists of Color named Benfred Clement Smith its new
executive director...Alberto Ibargüen, publisher of the Miami Herald, is named a Newseum trustee.
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