Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle del Hudson
Recently on my show, La Voz con Mariel Fiori, I had the honor and good fortune to interview award-winning journalist Juan González, writer (author of “La Cosecha del Imperio,” a required reading text in more than 200 universities in the country), co-host, with Amy Goodman, of the radio and television program “Democracy Now!”, one of the founding members of the NAHJ, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which this year turned 40 years old, and also a journalism professor. The topic of our conversation was the need for more Hispanic journalists in the media.
Here are some highlights of the interview. González said: “As we know, the Latin American population in the United States has been growing at an incredible rate with more than 65 million people who have their origins in Latin American families. However, there are still few journalists reporting in the media in this country. When I started as a journalist in the commercial media in 1978 with the Philadelphia Daily News, there were four daily newspapers in the city of Philadelphia and dozens of radio and television stations, and I was the only Latino in all the media in Philadelphia. Although the situation has improved in recent years, there is still a long way to go to have a representation in the media that reflects the population and the growth of the Latino population as it is.
I work now at the University of Illinois at Chicago and we put out a report in the last few days about the Mexican community in the Chicago area. There are more than 1.5 million Mexicans in Chicago and the counties around the city, but almost all the information that comes out in the press is negative about immigration problems, crime, and they don't report on the great contribution that Mexicans are making to the city of Chicago. For example, 70% of the construction workers in the city of Chicago are Mexican, 44% in all the restaurants and hotels in Chicago, and the car mechanics. All of these jobs are being done by Mexicans and they are almost always earning the lowest wages, but they are doing the hardest work. Chicago's rebirth after much of the industry left for other countries is the result of the Mexican workforce. There are few media outlets that try to capture what is happening on a daily basis.
The problem is that the media is changing as a result of the development of communication technology and so newspapers gradually fell in importance and today it is social media and online journalism that have more influence than the old forms of communication like radio, television and newspapers. So we have to continue adapting our efforts to ensure that the companies that dominate Communication and Journalism in the United States continue to make the same changes in terms of who the people are that they are employing because obviously if there are no Latinos who know the community, the problems that the community has will not be reflected in the news that the rest of the country consumes.”
For young readers, is it still viable to pursue a career in journalism?
Gonzalez's response: “Journalism is one of the most important professions in our world because most people are working all day, trying to support their families, they don't have the skill or the ability to know what's going on in other parts of the world or in their own city. And that's why journalists are needed to tell the people what's going on and also interpret and analyze the situation, independently of the government or the corporation, or other groups, an independent understanding. That's the importance of journalism. Yes, there is a possibility today for careers, although more in terms of an individual, of one becoming one's own company, establishing one's own journalism business, because the big chains are slowly falling in our country.”
This magazine you have in your hands is an independent local publication, funded with the support of Bard College, sponsors, the NoVo Foundation and donations from our readers. If you want to continue reading La Voz, please take a few minutes to make a tax-deductible donation at lavoz.bard.edu/donar.
La Voz is free to read, but not to make. Thank you for your support!
Mariel Fiori
Directorback to top
COPYRIGHT 2024
La Voz, Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle de Hudson
Here are some highlights of the interview. González said: “As we know, the Latin American population in the United States has been growing at an incredible rate with more than 65 million people who have their origins in Latin American families. However, there are still few journalists reporting in the media in this country. When I started as a journalist in the commercial media in 1978 with the Philadelphia Daily News, there were four daily newspapers in the city of Philadelphia and dozens of radio and television stations, and I was the only Latino in all the media in Philadelphia. Although the situation has improved in recent years, there is still a long way to go to have a representation in the media that reflects the population and the growth of the Latino population as it is.
I work now at the University of Illinois at Chicago and we put out a report in the last few days about the Mexican community in the Chicago area. There are more than 1.5 million Mexicans in Chicago and the counties around the city, but almost all the information that comes out in the press is negative about immigration problems, crime, and they don't report on the great contribution that Mexicans are making to the city of Chicago. For example, 70% of the construction workers in the city of Chicago are Mexican, 44% in all the restaurants and hotels in Chicago, and the car mechanics. All of these jobs are being done by Mexicans and they are almost always earning the lowest wages, but they are doing the hardest work. Chicago's rebirth after much of the industry left for other countries is the result of the Mexican workforce. There are few media outlets that try to capture what is happening on a daily basis.
The problem is that the media is changing as a result of the development of communication technology and so newspapers gradually fell in importance and today it is social media and online journalism that have more influence than the old forms of communication like radio, television and newspapers. So we have to continue adapting our efforts to ensure that the companies that dominate Communication and Journalism in the United States continue to make the same changes in terms of who the people are that they are employing because obviously if there are no Latinos who know the community, the problems that the community has will not be reflected in the news that the rest of the country consumes.”
For young readers, is it still viable to pursue a career in journalism?
Gonzalez's response: “Journalism is one of the most important professions in our world because most people are working all day, trying to support their families, they don't have the skill or the ability to know what's going on in other parts of the world or in their own city. And that's why journalists are needed to tell the people what's going on and also interpret and analyze the situation, independently of the government or the corporation, or other groups, an independent understanding. That's the importance of journalism. Yes, there is a possibility today for careers, although more in terms of an individual, of one becoming one's own company, establishing one's own journalism business, because the big chains are slowly falling in our country.”
This magazine you have in your hands is an independent local publication, funded with the support of Bard College, sponsors, the NoVo Foundation and donations from our readers. If you want to continue reading La Voz, please take a few minutes to make a tax-deductible donation at lavoz.bard.edu/donar.
La Voz is free to read, but not to make. Thank you for your support!
Mariel Fiori
Directorback to top
COPYRIGHT 2024
La Voz, Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle de Hudson
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