ABSTRACT
If news coverage of US Latinos could be characterized with three adjectives, they would be: improved, unsophisticated, and scant.
There has been genuine improvement in news coverage over the 30 years that I’ve been informally tracking it, first as a college student, then as a professional journalist, and now as a college professor and news consumer-and always as a Latina, which is
undeniably part of my perspective.1 Coverage of Latinas/os is not the only factor I look for when watching, listening to, or reading the news: it is among several variables I evaluate. These include whether the lead is good, whether the story is organized, whether the facts support the writer’s assessment, whether there is enough historical context to make sense of the latest development, why the story is news, and whether the story is news. I cheer, mentally, when someone does a good job; it is not surprising that Juan Castillo, a local writer for the Austin American-Statesman, consistently writes important stories on Latinos with clarity and balance. But, I also am extremely disappointed when Latinas/os get left out of stories, get treated badly in the news, or when someone did not think about how the Latino community might read a particular story’s content.
