Gustavo Arellano, the writer of the nationally syndicated column, “Ask a Mexican” and editor of OC Weekly, is out with advice to help the mainstream media (i.e. major English language media outlets) “correct their pathetic record on reporting” on Mexican mega-superstar Jenni Rivera who was killed in a plane crash on Sunday.
As Arellano writes, Rivera “operated in plain sight under a media that, like usual, didn’t bother to pay attention while she was alive because she was a Mexican and popular mostly to Mexicans–and they never matter unless you can get a diversity grant to cover them.
States, Now that she’s dead? Look everyone: we cover Mexicans!”
He adds, “No media outlet is the bigger sinner, however, than the Los Angeles Times, the perpetual pendejos (idiots) when covering Latinos in Southern California. A look through the Proquest archives show that they never did a single full profile on Rivera–not once. The only full stories on her were two–one was a story on a reality show involving her youngest daughter. Another–of all things!–was a real-estate story on Rivera purchasing a multimillion-dollar estate in Encino. Before her death, there were only two other shorter stories, both by freelancers: a concert review, and a record review.
Arellano says none of the mainstream media is absolved. NPR? Not a single story on Rivera until she passed away. New York Times? Just a brief mention in a story not involving her. Even Rivera’s hometown paper, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, waited until last year to finally cover the hometown hero.
Tellingly, on Twitter, Jorge Ramos–-anchor for Univisión, and dean of Spanish-language journalism in the United States tweeted yesterday (in Spanish, of course), “The English media doesn’t understand the TV coverage in Spanish of the death of [Puerto Rican boxer] Macho Camacho and Jenni Rivera…that’s why their ratings fall.”
