Stereotypes of Hispanic and Latino Americans - News Media and Crime

News Media and Crime

In 2003, Serafín Méndez-Méndez and Diane Alverio of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists reported the following findings:

• Latino-related stories make up less than 1% of all the stories that appear on network newscasts, even though Latinos make up more than 13% of the U.S. population.
• Crime, terrorism, poverty and welfare, and illegal immigration accounted for 66% of all network stories about Latinos in 2001.
• The arrest of suspected terrorist Jose Padilla, for allegedly plotting to detonate a "dirty bomb", occupied a central role in the coverage of Latinos in 2002, with 21 network stories or 18% of all stories that aired on Latinos.
• "The number of Latino-related crime and youth gang stories in 2002 was grossly excessive when compared to statistics on crimes involving Latinos."
• "Illegal immigration continues to be an important focus of network news coverage of Latinos."

EthnicMajority.com, a minority empowerment organization, states: "Who we see, hear, and read on television, radio, newspapers, and in movies has a great deal of influence on shaping the attitudes of all Americans. How African, Hispanic (Latino), and Asian Americans are portrayed in these mediums often stereotypes and reinforces negative images of each ethnic group."

Progressive media watch group Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) points out that in contrast to the media's over-representation of minorities as criminals and drug users is their under representation as experts and analysts. FAIR's studies in the late 1980s and early 1990s documented that 92% of Nightline's U.S. guests were white, 90% of the NewsHour's guests were white, and 26 out of 27 repeat commentators on National Public Radio over a four-month period were white.