Daisy Hernandez

What Does Latin America See of the DNC?

I was watching CNN en Español yesterday, and if that was your only media outlet, you would think Obama didn’t have much Latino support. There was a lawyer from LULAC talking (like others) about why they supported Hillary: we know her, we have a long relationship with the Clintons. Then there was Silver Salaazar, long-time Democrat apparently, saying that he was switching to McCain because the Democratic party had left him.

Ok, so the large Latino orgs and some big-time Latino Dems are down for the Clintons. What else is new?

What’s disturbing is that for a segment of Latin America tuning in to the election coverage on CNN, it is a narrow window onto the U.S. Latino experience of this election. Ok, Obama has Latino detractors. He also has Polish ones, Asian ones, rich white guys, poor white guys.

I’d like to say that CNN in Spanish was just doing what its English counterparts were doing but with a Latino twist: find the Hillary lovers and make them the news of the day.

But you see, English news doesn’t translate to Spanish very well. In taking on the Hillary story from a Latino angle, CNN en Español actually created a new story: brown people aren’t down for the Black candidate. It’s an old story but one that media makers seem to love: the brown and Black people are fighting!

I’m not saying there aren’t problems between our communities, but reducing it to who’s turning for Hillary is more about media sensation than substance. And it’s a disservice to Latinos who go to CNN for their news coverage.

Posted at 10:52 AM, Aug 26, 2008 in Elections | Permalink | View Comments