U.S. Journalism Has a Hispanic Blind Spot. President Biden Can Help Fix It.
Written by President & CEO Javier Palomarez. This article can also be read on The Miami Herald.
As President Biden prepared to take office a year ago, he made bold promises to ensure that his administration would reflect America’s diversity, including representing America’s 60 million Hispanics. He has done an admirable job selecting men and women of color to his Cabinet, making it one of the most diverse in American history. But one area where he could go further to give underrepresented voices more of a role is by appointing a Hispanic to the Federal Communications Commission for the first time in two decades.
The president’s latest Federal Communications Commission nominee, Gigi Sohn, looks increasingly unlikely to be seated at her post because of Republican objections. While the Biden administration may see this as a failure, his team should instead see it as an opportunity to make good on those promises.
Nowhere are Hispanics more underrepresented than in American media. That’s not just my view. It was the verdict of a damning report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which confirmed that just 11% of the nation’s journalists and commentators are Hispanic. That number included those who work at Spanish-language news outlets, which, unsurprisingly, are staffed almost entirely by Hispanics. This means that their share of representation at English-language, mainstream outlets is even smaller, dipping into the low single digits.
With Hispanics making up almost 20 percent of America’s population, we need an FCC commissioner who is committed to encouraging change in the industry he or she oversees. They should be uniquely attuned to the issues important to our community and the media we consume. Only a Hispanic nominee can adequately combat disinformation in Hispanic media, identify anti-Hispanic racism in federally regulated communications and appropriately monitor and regulate the country’s vast network of Spanish-language media.
It’s shameful that Hispanics, who make up such a large percentage of the American population, and who work hard and find success across all of American industry, should be shut out of the important work of telling our country’s story. It’s especially disappointing given the resounding statements promising new commitments to diversity issued by media organizations — along with many other institutions — during the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020. These commitments ring hollow when it comes to accurately representing Hispanic Americans, especially if you happen to flip through the major network morning shows on any given day.
All of the news networks have vowed to make their public-facing talent more representative of the country. There have been some strides, especially at NBC under the leadership of Cesar Conde, the first and only Hispanic to be chairman of NBCUniversal News Group. NBC has more Hispanic anchors than any other English-language news organization. Jose Diaz-Balart, Alicia Menendez, Carl Quintanilla and Tom Llamas are some of the network’s on-air talent.
Some newsrooms and networks have taken important steps to diversify in recent years, especially by hiring more Black journalists. That was long overdue. But the GAO report shows that there is still much work to be done. If networks are to meet the challenge to reflect the changing face of America, how can they exclude faces that represent almost 20 percent of the country?
Networks would also do well to remember that Hispanic Americans have a purchasing power of around $2 trillion dollars, an amount larger than the GDP of Brazil, Canada or Russia. Hispanics are a serious engine of economic growth in this country. They are more than 60 million strong, and contrary to stereotype, they aren’t just watching Spanish-language telenovelas and news. They watch your channels and read your websites, and the ads you run reach their eyeballs, too.
There’s no better way for the agency that oversees American broadcast media to lead the way with the first Hispanic commissioner in decades, of which there are plenty of well-qualified candidates, such as the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts advocate Félix Sánchez.
It’s time for ABC, CBS and other media outlets to follow suit and include Hispanics in prominent positions both in front of and behind the camera. Hispanics are tired of being overlooked.
Written by Javier Palomarez, President and CEO of the USHBC. This article can also be read on The Miami Herald. Javier Palomarez is president and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC), a 501(c)6 non-profit organization focusing on improving access to contracting in the public and private sector and fair representation of Hispanics in business, media, and politics.
