U.S. Networks Shun Hispanic Issues

Despite many millions of U.S. Hispanics whose first language is English, the country's main television networks virtually ignored Latino issues during last year's electoral campaign, and in general dedicated less time to foreign news than did Spanish-language stations, a new study shows. The report focuses on the coverage provided by ABC, CBS, NBC, Telemundo, Univision and their affiliates in New York, Miami and Los Angeles during the four weeks prior to the November elections, but it also analyzes differences in other areas. Prepared by researchers at the Lear Center Local News Archive, a project of the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Southern California, and the University of Wisconsin, the study found that national English-language networks dedicated more time on evening newscasts to the campaign than Spanish-language networks. In the latter group, the report found, Univision "is more like an English-language network in the quantity and quality of its election coverage; it provided more and better coverage than its competitor, Telemundo." Univision, which sometimes beat out the English-language networks in terms of quantity of coverage, got better ratings than Telemundo. [more]