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Cleveland
TV station execs to meet with Hispanic Roundtable
By Kevin Milliken, La Prensa Correspondent
Representatives from a Cleveland TV station will meet Wed., May
28, 2014 with members of the Hispanic Roundtable to get
their feedback on how to provide better news coverage of the
Latino community in Northeast Ohio.
The meeting will be held at the Julia De Burgos at El
Barrio, 5209 Detroit, Cleveland, starting at 5:30 p.m.
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Stephanie Ramírez |
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The
community outreach meeting will be attended by WEWS-TV/Newschannel
5 news management and multimedia journalists. They are
seeking feedback and suggestions to improve serving the Latino
community. One of the bright stars of WEWS-TV/Newschannel 5 is
its reporter Stephanie Ramírez.
An invitation to the event suggests attendees consider which
local stories they would like to see reported about the Latino
community, as well as what journalists can do differently. The
invitation also encourages Latino leaders to ask questions about
future plans for improved coverage.
It’s unclear whether the two are related, but the WEWS-TV
meeting comes just weeks after the
Cleveland and Ohio chapters of the League of United Latin
American Citizens (LULAC) demanded a meeting with Cleveland
Plain Dealer and Northeast Ohio Media Group
executives after a column was published denouncing undocumented
immigrants as more interested in earning money than obtaining
citizenship. [See Letter to the Editor on page 2.]
Still, such a meeting with TV news execs would further the
nonprofit Hispanic Roundtable’s mission
“to act as a catalyst to empower the Hispanic Community to
become full partners in economic, education, political, civic
and social life of Greater Cleveland.”
Volunteer-led
committees currently are working to advance an agenda formed at
last fall’s Convención Hispana that focuses on the areas
of education, empowerment, health, and workforce/economic
development.
Hispanic Roundtable
chairman José C Feliciano Sr.
will develop a series of requests to the media in Greater
Cleveland, including “more reporters, more access to news, more
access to local public affairs shows, access to public service
announcements, and potential editorials.” Attorney Feliciano
also intends to request a “point person” at Newschannel 5
to facilitate communication with the greater Latino community in
Cleveland. TV station executives also will be asked to put on a
“nuts and bolts” workshop for community groups, such as the
Spanish-American Committee, on how to access WEWS-TV.
“There has been marginal improvement. The local media, in
general, are woefully under informed about our community. The
national Hispanic story has informed them somewhat. We simply
are not very high on their agenda,” lamented Feliciano. “In
general, they need to do a much better job to cover our
community. We are undervalued and overlooked.”
But the Hispanic Roundtable chairman was quick to point
out that Latino leaders “bear part of the responsibility to
bring issues and matters to their attention.” He called the
community forum “an effort by the Hispanic Roundtable to
help do that.”
According to the
Convención Hispana
Facebook page, approximately 20 people plan to attend the
community forum. Others were asked to register by a Memorial Day
deadline by emailing
HRTcommunityprograms@gmail.com.
Editor’s Note: In general, mainstream media is often
unfamiliar with Latino culture and tradition and often fails to
highlight many of its positive contributions. Moreover,
mainstream media often refers to “illegal” immigrants instead of
“undocumented” immigrants, the latter being the more accurate
and less explosive terminology. Mainstream media generally uses
the word “American” when referring to a resident of the United
States, whereas, in reality, any individual from North, Central,
or South America is an “American.”
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