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Latinas Haven’t Been Waiting for White Newsrooms to Transform

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Latinas aiming for lifetime careers in journalism and decision-making positions face an uphill battle. Our representation —Latinas formed just 1.76 percent of all newsroom leaders— in U.S. English-language newsrooms speaks to this and so does the push-out that journalists of color experience.

Reporters of color often leave the news media industry because their advancement is not supported, they are worn out from being the lone or one of a few voices advocating for change and for stories that matter, and have to battle pay inequity and microaggressions.

Over decades, the failure of newsrooms to retain Latinas and people of color overall has been repeatedly studied and cited as a persistent problem, but addressed largely with diversity initiatives and skills training, instead of the overhaul of newsroom culture and practices that many white executives and owners have resisted.

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While the reckoning in journalism that has been taking place in social media and newsrooms has allowed for an airing of, and even consequences for, racist and sexist practices, journalists like Andrea González-Ramírez remain concerned about having a lasting career.

For this reason, Gonzalez-Ramírez, a senior writer at Medium’s Gen, introduced last month the Latinas in Journalism Mentorship Program. This free digital service allows Latinas to directly book a conversation with a seasoned professional.

We “…wanted to create this network of mentors because we want people to stay in the industry because our voices are important, our stories are important, and our reporting is important,” said González-Ramírez, who took to Twitter earlier this year to denounce the treatment at Refinery29. “But I also know that people who leave have good reasons for doing so and I cannot blame them. I get it.”

Mentorship and peer support has a long history, with formal and informal groups like Las Comadres and LIPS (Latinas in Power) serving as a refuge from the too familiar experience of “being the only Latina in the room.”

“We learned to use our collective energy to push these newsrooms to cover big stories”
Rossana Rosado, former editor in chief and publisher, El Diario/La Prensa

Rossana Rosado, the visionary behind LIPS, explained that after her former colleague and relentless journalist Manuel De Dios Unanue was killed by a drug cartel in 1993, many English-language news outlets assigned the one or few Latino reporters they had to cover the story. “When Manuel was killed, Latinos were being pulled in every newsroom to do this ‘Latino’ story because they [newsrooms] didn’t see it as a journalist being killed, they saw it as a Latino being killed,” Rosado said.

“I didn’t know them…and I realized that we didn’t have our own inner circle,” Rosado said of the Latina reporters surfacing. “For me, the lightbulb moment was recognizing that I had to create my own peer group because it wasn’t something that happened organically when you had people working in different news organizations, and in many ways, rival news organizations.”

Rosado and then NPR reporter Maria Hinojosa invited Latinas, many from both English and Spanish-language media in New York City, to meet at the Caribbean Cultural Center. Since that January 1993 meeting, LIPS continues its bond. ‘Lipsters’ are veteran executives, some within the field like Hinojosa, who established Futuro Media as her own nonprofit, while others are in government, as with Rosado, the secretary of state for New York.

Like the challenges Latinas continue to face, LIPsters would seek counsel on everything from how to land a prestigious news beat, to how to work a male dominated and white newsroom structure. “We learned to use our collective energy to push these newsrooms to cover big stories,” Rosado said.

One of these big stories in 2006 was the national crisis of Latina girls experiencing the highest rates of attempted suicide. Elaine Rivera, a LIPster, had pitched the story to at least three organizations that rejected it, as Rosado recalled. El Diario/La Prensa, with Rosado as its then publisher, contracted Rivera and ran her front-page bilingual series on this crisis, as well as editorials that successfully pressured New York City government to fund the health program Life is Precious. “It was a story that was truly born out of LIPS,” Rosado said. Other media then began covering this crisis.

“There should be a point where Latinas shouldn’t have to be warriors, But the truth is we have to be guerreras”
Maria Hinojosa, journalist and author of Once I Was You

Latinas have stepped into power by finding each other, advocating collectively, leveraging leadership roles, and taking control of the means of production, as Hinojosa did.

But the prompt for much of this needed action is white media owners and newsroom leaders.

“I hope every single journalist in a senior editorial position takes a moment to realize their responsibility in why we are here,” said Hinojosa. We’re in this place “essentially because the entire structure has not changed,” she explained, adding that white editors have historically made journalists of color the problem and avoided taking ownership of poor media coverage and their reinforcement of racism.

“In the news media, a lot of these senior folks who are white men, and white women too, they take it very personally when we specifically as Latinos and as Latinas demand more. What they fail to understand is that these demands are actually demands for the most professional and highest ethical standards of American journalists. They’re making it political.”

“So when we see that the news media is not representing us…is not framing us correctly…or empowering narratives of hatred and separation coming down from the White House, that is not good journalism. They should be ashamed of themselves because they’re practicing bad journalism.”

What has changed, Hinojosa said, is that more journalists are running independent news platforms. One recent example is Camille Padilla Dalmau's 9 millones, a news source focused on how Puerto Ricans are tackling issues affecting their island.

As for up and coming Latina reporters, Hinojosa advised them to own that they are journalists at their core. “They are part of a long arc of journalists of color and journalists of conscience, like Ida B. Wells and Jovita Idár. Journalism is not owned by white men.”

This also means that, like Wells and Idár, Latina journalists along with other women of color are forced to pick up the mantle of anti racism and sexism work. “There should be a point where Latinas shouldn’t have to be warriors,” Hinojosa said. “But the truth is we have to be guerreras.”



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More articles by Tag: mentorship, Latinas, Andrea Gonzalez Ramirez, Rossana Rosado, Maria Hinojosa, newsrooms, Racism, Sexism, Kerner, retention, Women of color
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Erica González Martínez
Founding Editor - WMC IDAR/E. Director - Power For Puerto Rico
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