The National Association of Hispanic Journalists urges media organizations that serve Latino communities to be extremely diligent when considering the impact that budget and staff cuts will have on their audiences.

A recent reduction by Univision Communications of six percent of its workforce and Telemundo's announcement today of cuts will invariably result in less coverage of issues important and necessary to the Latino community and those who depend on Spanish-language news and information.

According to The Center for Spanish Language Media at the University of North Texas State of Spanish Language Media 2008 annual report, "Univision & Telemundo reach over 95% of U.S. Hispanic viewers and own and operate more than 35 television stations including full-power stations in Puerto Rico."

NAHJ would encourage media organizations, especially those geared to a Spanish-language audience, to be transparent in their efforts to maintain the high-quality news coverage they have been dedicated to producing and communicate to their audiences the reasons for the cuts.

Ultimately, the survival of Spanish-language media corporations will depend on their ability to serve these communities. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has. Hispanics represent the fastest-growing minority group in the nation and while the economy, election and war have dominated news coverage for the last couple of years, there is still much work to do in the areas of immigration, health and education, work that will be incomplete without the voices and work of the journalists whose jobs it is to cover these issues.

When Spanish-language journalists lose their jobs, and their newscasts and/or publications close down, the communities they serve lose a lot more: fewer or no options to news and information in their language.