Media Research Center launches 'MRC Latino' to monitor Spanish-language press

On April 1, the Media Research Center launched "MRC Latino" in Washington, D.C., with an aim to monitor Latino news sources — particularly Spanish-language media — for liberal bias. The launch was followed by a symposium ("Conservatives and Latino Media: Assessing and Addressing the Challenges")  and the release of an analysis of the nightly news on Univision and Telemundo.

The analysis reportedly found that "out of 667 stories on U.S. domestic policy, more than six times as many tilted left/liberal (300 or 45 percent) as slanted in a right/conservative direction (43, or 6 percent)." 

Moreover, the MRC Latino analysis states: "Overall, Democratic politicians, led by President Obama, Obama administration officials and congressional Democrats, along with spokespeople for left-leaning advocacy organizations, were quoted nearly three times as often as their Republican and conservative counterparts (1,011 to 370 appearances and/or direct quotations)."

The release of the analysis, indeed the establishment of MRC Latino itself is an opportunity for conservatives to better engage with Latino media, according to MRC president Brent Bozell. 

"As of now, Telemundo and Univision are failing to live up to the most basic journalistic standard —report the news without a pervasive partisan slant," he said. "But have conservatives done enough to reach out the Latino media?"

We're all for receiving more and better information from conservative organizations — as of now their outreach to us is paltry and sporadic. As we noted on a blog post by Israel Ortega on the Heritage Foundation's web site ("The Foundry" section): AL DÍA's editorial content about political policies and legislative proposals isn't predicated or weighted one way or another along political or party lines, but on the perceived benefit/detriment to Latinos in Philadelphia and the nation.

Speaking for ourselves, the Latino media isn't so much biased as invested in seeing Latinos fairly and accurately represented. Many conservative organizations have failed — by omission or commission — to represent Latinos in a fair manner. They've often given big platforms and bullhorns to  people like Rep. Steven King (who has likened undocumented immigrants to dogs) or the former Heritage Foundation senior analyst Jason Richwine (whose doctoral work hinged on Latino intellectual inferiority) while minimizing the more reasoned and reasonable conservative voices.

To reach Latinos, to see a more favorable reflection of who U.S. conservatives are and how their interests and policy proposals intersect with Latino interests, conservative organizations must be willing to deal with us as equals. And as the diverse, multi-faceted demographic Latinos in the U.S. truly are.

Likewise, while Univision and Telemundo are the most visible Spanish-language news producers in the nation, they are far from the only — or most representative — ones. 

We at AL DÍA, for example, know that our readership in print and online are  well informed and engaged, and that they expect news stories from us that are on par, if not superior to, what they are able to get from any general interest news organizations. 

Our analysis, in-depth reports and features all reflect a commitment to excellence in journalism, and so we expect the outreach to us to have at least the same intellectual rigor and depth as we are willing to put into our reporting and commenting. We not only welcome conservative groups and interests to approach us in that way, we expect it.