Motivated by a steady increase in hate crimes against Hispanics throughout the country, members of the California-based National Hispanic Media Coalition came to the nation's capital Jan. 28 to deliver a petition for inquiry on hate speech in the media to the Federal Communications Commission. The figures have jumped 40 percent in the last four years, up from 426 to 595, FBI data show.

  To address what he defined as "a huge and growing national problem,” NHMC President Alex Nogales stopped off first at the National Press Club. There he was joined by representatives from five other organizations, each expressing their concerns.

"This kind of stuff is going on the radio and television day in and day out, and when we go to the internet, things are even worse," Nogales said. NHMC has been researching the subject for two years.

Accompanying him was Francisco Javier Iribarren, assistant director of the University of California at Los Angeles' Chicano Studies Research Center, which conducted a pilot study to quantify hate speech in commercial talk radio.

From the study the research center has developed a "replicable methodology that could be used to establish the nature and extent of hate speech," Iribarren said.

Georgetown University Law Center attorney Jessica González delivered the petition to the FCC that afternoon. She emphasized that it does not ask for regulation. “Rather, it seeks an examination into the extent and nature of hate speech in our media and options for counteracting its effects," she said

Hate speech has definitely been a factor in crimes against Hispanics, Nogales stated.

While calling on the FCC to take a fresh look at the issue, NHMC is requesting that the Secretary of Commerce, or in the alternative, Congress, direct the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to follow up on its 1993 report, "The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crime."

Nogales said there are those who want to keep hate speech "under the radar" and will claim that such an inquiry runs the risk of violating the First Amendment. He acknowledged there needs to be a balance between resolving the problem and respecting the First Amendment.

The NHMC petition asks the FCC to invite public comment.

Another speaker, former FCC chairwoman Gloria Tristani, commented that because of the logistics of the transition to a new administration, it could take weeks or months for the commission to act. "All we can do is push," she said.

Ben Scott, policy director of Free Press, an organization active on Capitol Hill which advocates for greater media diversity, suggested there’s a balance that can be reached. "This is not about censorship. It's about literacy, media literacy," Scott said. He pressed for a greater scrutiny, both by the media and public institutions, of hate speech. "We need people to become more involved.”

(Jacqueline Baylón is a reporter with Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, D.C. Email: [email protected]).