NAHJ’s Parity Project Shines In Orlando, Florida

By Kevin Olivas, NAHJ Parity Project Director

For both the staff of the Orlando Sentinel and the 55 Latino community members who attended the May 23, 2006 Parity Project town hall at that paper, the event was a lesson in how editorials can affect the image of an entire news organization.

Marytza Sanz heads up Latino Leadership, a non-profit organization in Orlando that focuses on leadership development, educational advancement and economic empowerment of Latinos in that city.

“I helped organize the May 1st immigration rally (in the Orlando area),” she said. “What I witnessed at that rally was much different than what appeared in the editorial pages of the Sentinel. The editorials cast those who were demonstrating in a negative light. Messages should not be changed to appease specific members of the newspaper’s audience.”

Orlando-based film producer Nelson Betancourt also took issue with the depiction of Latinos on the Sentinel’s editorial pages. “Our problem is not with the reporters, it is in the editorial area. Reporters get into the nitty gritty of a story,“ he said. “There is a disconnect with the editorial section, especially when it comes to free trade. The Sentinel’s editorial board seems to push for free trade and homogeneity of all Latino cultures. We’re diverse.”

Sentinel publisher Kathleen M. Waltz responded: “Sometimes we have been guilty of lumping people together. Our policy at the Sentinel is to keep news and editorials separate. Editorials are not meant to be news, they are opinions.”

Waltz did acknowledge that there are currently no Latinos on the Sentinel’s editorial board, though there have been some in the past. She told the audience that the paper’s editorial board meets four days a week and invited anyone to take part in those meetings.

The Orlando Sentinel is owned by the Tribune Company and has a daily circulation of about 220,000. It faces a big challenge in covering Latinos in its community, which has traditionally had large numbers of Cubans and Puerto Ricans, but is now seeing a large influx of people from México, Central America and South America.

Latinos make up about 15.5% of the paper’s circulation area.

When it comes to the news side of the Sentinel’s operations, there were concerns and praise from the audience. Orlando resident Carlos Martinez is one of those with concerns: “Mexicans and Mexican Americans make up the second-largest segment of Latinos in Florida, but we are not covered because many of us are immigrations or are un-documented. There is not enough coverage of the working class. Coverage seems to center on people who are politically powerful. That’s my impression.”

Sentinel Hispanic affairs and immigration reporter Victor Ramos said, “We’re trying to provide more coverage of our Mexican American community. Many of these people are un-documented and fear punishment if they speak to anyone from a newspaper. Puerto Ricans make up the number one segment of Latinos in our area, followed by Mexicans. We are also trying to reach out to growing populations of people who are Colombian, Venezuelan, etc. We are trying to cover these people year-round, not just during events like Cinco de Mayo.”

Sentinel editor Charlotte Hall said, “If our reporters are not including diversity in any of their beats, they are not doing their jobs.”

NAHJ has a large chapter in Orlando and Central Florida 13 News television reporter Ybeth Bruzual is the interim president of that group. “The Orlando Sentinel helped our chapter to raise money to send three Latino journalism students to the 2006 NAHJ convention in Fort Lauderdale,” said Bruzual.

The Orlando Sentinel also publishes a Spanish-language weekly, El Sentinel, which has grown from a staff of six and often does enterprise stories that do not appear in its English-language counterpart.

El Sentinel recently published a hurricane preparedness guide for its readers. José Rodriguez, who is a circuit court judge in Orange County, Florida, says his mother-in-law is a subscriber to El Sentinel and that both publications could learn from each other and the community. “El Sentinel shows Latinos as doctors, lawyers, etc. The Orlando Sentinel should do the same. There is a need for Latino managers at the Orlando Sentinel. You have an orchard ripe for picking when it comes to Latinos in this area. Utilize the paper as a teaching tool beyond journalism to include topics like civics.”

As part of its partnership in NAHJ’s Parity Project, the Orlando Sentinel will be forming a community advisory committee made up of a representative cross-section of the Latino population in the paper’s circulation area.

This committee, which will include staffers from the paper as well, will meet periodically to discuss the paper’s coverage of Latinos and ways to improve that coverage such as finding sources for any story who are Latino.

This is the beginning of a five-year partnership between NAHJ and the Orlando Sentinel.

NAHJ’s Parity Project is funded primarily by the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation.

The Parity Project is intended to serve as a model for the entire journalism industry when it comes to improving newsroom diversity and coverage of diverse communities.