A call in NAHJ for more outreach to Spanish-language media

By Joe Menard
The Unity News

Outreach to the Spanish-language media by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists is not what it should be, some Unity participants said.

Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group in the United States, and the Spanish-language media is growing along with it. While there is this growth, some in the Spanish-language media say they do not believe that their perspectives are being pursued aggressively by NAHJ. At Unity '99, there were about half a dozen representatives from the Spanish-language media.

Lupe Marsico, director of human resources at Telemundo in Los Angeles, said NAHJ needs to be more persistent in reaching out to the Spanish market.

"If I got a phone call from NAHJ that said 'Let me tell you what we can do for you,' you better believe I'd be listening," Marsico said. She also said NAHJ should focus more on going out to high schools and colleges to talk to students about the importance of the Spanish media.

Nancy Baca, president of NAHJ, said the organization wanted to appeal to the Latin media by having more panels in Spanish.

However, three of five Spanish-language panels were canceled this week because NAHJ was unable to get enough panelists, said Antonio Mej'as-Rentas, chairman of the Spanish-language committee.

Mej'as-Rentas, also entertainment editor for La Opini-n, a Spanish-language newspaper in Los Angeles, said NAHJ had offered panels and workshops in Spanish at each of the group's annual conventions.

Albor Ruiz, a columnist for the New York Daily News and former NAHJ regional director, said a major problem was that people in the Spanish-language media do not see the benefits of joining NAHJ. Many chided the organization because it does not do more to target the Spanish-language media, he said.

"I think we have to build a better base than we have right now," Ruiz said, adding that all of the group's organizational meetings are in English.

Pascual Otazu, human resources team leader for El Nuevo Herald in Miami, said he expected to find more qualified bilingual candidates at this year's convention to fill the three or four openings in his newsroom. But, he added, he was disappointed at the small number of applicants.

"[NAHJ] should recruit more bilingual journalists," he said.

To help bridge the gap, Otazu said NAHJ should publish its newsletter in both English and Spanish.

Mej'as-Rentas said NAHJ used to publish a bilingual newsletter, but production problems ended that. He said he would recommend to the board that at least part of the newsletter be bilingual.

Ruiz said other things NAHJ can do to attract more members from the Spanish media is to offer more financial support, like giving membership fee breaks for events like Unity '99.

He said the organization could come up with more workshops that deal with Spanish-language issues, such as modernizing the newsroom. He also said he would like to see more bilingual Hispanic journalists cross over between the two markets, capitalizing on their ability to speak two languages.

"Hispanic is all inclusive, whether you were born here or came from Guatemala yesterday," he said.