Legality of Cannabis by U.S. Jurisdiction

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University of Nevada, Reno
We Speak Your Language:
How Bilingual Journalism is Practiced in the American West
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, Spanish, and the Honors Program
by
Natalie Van Hoozer
Dr. Donica Mensing, Thesis Advisor
May, 2018
UNIVERSITY
OF NEVADA
RENO
THE HONORS PROGRAM
We recommend that the thesis
prepared under our supervision by
NATALIE VAN HOOZER
Entitled
We Speak Your Language:
How Bilingual Journalism is Practiced in the American West
be accepted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
BACHELOR OF ARTS, JOUNALISM AND SPANISH
______________________________________________
Donica Mensing, Ph.D., Thesis Advisor
______________________________________________
Tamara Valentine, Ph. D., Director, Honors Program
May, 2018
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Abstract
More Hispanics now live in the United States than ever before (Flores, 2017), with
the total number of Hispanics in the U.S. projected to grow to 199 million by 2060 (U.S.
Census Bureau, 2014). Spanish is the second most dominant language in the country after
English (Gonzalez-Barrera & Lopez, 2013). These trends have prompted increased
interest in bilingual Spanish-English journalism in the news media.
The goal of this study was to analyze how bilingual journalists working in areas with
high concentrations of English and Spanish speakers serve diverse audiences. The
research question for this project is therefore: How are bilingual journalists responding
linguistically and culturally to the needs of a growing bilingual Spanish-speaking
audience?
To address this question, in-depth interviews were conducted with 11 Spanish-
English bilingual journalists in Los Angeles and San Francisco, two areas with large
Spanish-speaking populations. Through these interviews, the reporting practices of
journalists who work in print, broadcast and online media were identified. Participants
consider bilingualism an important asset for reaching diverse audiences. They believe it
is becoming more accepted and noted experiments in Spanglish to reach young Latino
audiences.
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Acknowledgements
I would first like to thank the journalists who took the time to be interviewed in-
person for this project. My deepest gratitude goes to my thesis mentor Dr. Donica
Mensing for completing this thesis journey with me. From the day we came up with the
project concept all the way to defense, you have provided your insight and always been
ready to talk things through. You exemplify positive, firm mentorship.
I would also like to thank my family, Terri, Randy, and Samantha Van Hoozer,
for helping me with transcriptions when I needed you the most.
Many thanks to Janine Warner, David LaFontaine, and Shayne del Cohen for your
help and guidance during my visits to your cities. To my international team, Agustina
Almirón, Adriana Flecha and Melisa Prior, mil gracias, you made the completion of this
project a reality.
The travelling to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Austin, Texas, for this thesis
project was made possible with the Honors Undergraduate Research Award.
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Table of Contents
iv
v
List of Tables
Table 1: Description of Participants Interviewed for this Study………………………....21
Table 2: Languages Used by Reporters for Reporting and Publication………………… 26
1
Introduction
The Hispanic population in the United States is increasing in size, economic
influence and cultural impact. As of 2016, Hispanics made up 17.8% of the national
population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016a). By 2060, the Hispanic population of the U.S. is
projected to be 119 million, or 28.6% of the nation’s population (U.S. Census Bureau,
2014). California has a population of approximately 15.3 million Hispanics (38.9% of the
population), the largest Hispanic population in any state (U.S. Census Bureau, 2016b)
and greater than the population of many countries in Central America.
As the Hispanic population grows in the U.S., understanding the implications of
growing diversity on employment, housing, education and public policy, as well as on
social cohesion, equal rights and quality of life, becomes increasingly important. News is
one primary way in which people learn about others and begin to develop opinions about
public policy issues. However, information shared about, and to, the Latino community is
not always accurate or even available (Reny & Manzano, 2016). Therefore, in order for
society to better respond to the demographic changes happening with the Latino
community in the United States, it is vital to have journalists who can operate in the
middle space between English and Spanish, the two languages most related to the Latino
community. Journalists are needed who can report on the full experience of life in a
community, reporting in English on the news experiences of those who only speak
Spanish and sharing news of an English-speaking community with those who primarily
speak Spanish. Collecting stories from Spanish speaking audiences increases the number
and type of sources seen in the news as well as expands the breadth of topics being
covered, regardless of whether people are more fluent in English or Spanish.
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Not all people who classify ethnically as Hispanic or Latino necessarily speak
Spanish. However, the Hispanic population as a whole is tied linguistically and culturally
to the Spanish language. By the year 2020, the population of Spanish speakers in the
United States is expected to increase, representing about 13% of the total U.S. population
ages 5 and over. Spanish speakers will account for more than 60% of the population that
speaks a language other than English, according to 2010 projection of the U.S. Census
Bureau (Ortman & Shin, 2011, p. 10). For the purposes of this study, the terms
“Hispanic” and “Latino” are used interchangeably, following the Pew Research Center’s
definition of anyone from a Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central or South
American, Caribbean or some other Latin American background (Lopez, Gonzalez-
Barrera, & López, 2017, p. 23).
It is also important to note that the information needs of the U.S. Spanish-
speaking audience vary widely. It would not solve the complex linguistic and cultural
issues of the U.S. Spanish-speaking population to simply have some reporters who can
report in Spanish and others in English. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2016,
54% of U.S. Latinos said that they received some of their news in both English and
Spanish (Flores & Lopez, 2018). English proficiency has risen for U.S. Latinos because
the U.S.-born Latino population continues to grow, and a majority of English-speaking
Hispanics are bilingual (Krogstad, 2016).
The term “bilingual” can be interpreted in a variety of ways. When analyzing the
English and Spanish speaking populations in the U.S., the Pew Research Center defined
bilingualism as the “ability to conduct a conversation in Spanish and English”
(Bilingualism Fact Sheet, 2004). However, linguist François Grosjean asserts that
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bilingualism in general goes beyond the ability to speak two languages: “Bilingualism is
the regular use of two or more languages (or dialects), and bilinguals are those people
who use two or more languages (or dialects) in their everyday lives” (Grosjean, 2008, p.
10). Looking at bilingual journalism specifically, this definition implies that, if two
languages are used throughout any part of the journalistic process, such as conducting an
interview in Spanish and writing the related article in English, then that process can be
considered bilingual reporting.
United States Newsrooms Today
While Hispanics are a growing sector of the population, there is relatively little
mainstream media reported in Spanish. There are two major Spanish-language television
networks (Univision and Telemundo) and three major daily U.S. Spanish-language
newspapers (El Nuevo Herald, La Opinión, and El Diario de la Prensa) based on data
collected by the Pew Research Center (Shearer, 2017). Univision’s top-viewed news
program, Noticiero Univision had a viewership of 1.8 million on average in 2016, and
Telemundo’s most-watched news program, Al Rojo Vivo had an audience of 1 million on
average in 2016 (Shearer, 2017). There is obviously a much greater variety of
mainstream news outlets in English, which allows for more varied news content in
English.
In addition, Latinos are also not reflected proportionally in the diversity of
journalists in U.S. newsrooms, which is one important factor impacting the coverage of
this ethnic group. Overall, as a result of changing economics and technology, newsrooms
in the U.S. are shrinking dramatically in size; in 2000 there were 56,200 newspaper
employees working for newspapers (ASNE, 2000) but that number dropped to 32,900 by
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2015 (ASNE, 2015). In 1978, the percentage of minorities in U.S. newspaper newsrooms
was only 4%, and that percentage had only increased to 12.8% by 2015 (ASNE, 2015),
while the percentage of minorities in the U.S. population was 37.8% at the time of the
2014 U.S. Census (Colby & Ortman, 2015, p. 10).
A 2017 survey of major news companies by the American Society of Newspaper
Editors, including the New York Times, shows that few Hispanics are working as
journalists: only 4% of the New York Times newsroom is Hispanic, while Hispanics make
up almost 18% of the U.S. population. Similar newsroom statistics apply to the
Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal (ASNE, 2017). The fact that newsrooms are
shrinking rapidly, giving reporters even less time to cover the same amount of news, also
contributes to decreasing coverage and a lack of in-depth coverage in many communities.
It is difficult to cover the increasing complexity of social life in the U.S. with fewer and
fewer journalists.
In this context, it is critical to build newsrooms that represent the community.
Producing news by more diverse journalists not only increases the diversity of news, but
helps audiences trust the information being published (Harris, 2016). For journalism to
be seen as valuable and credible, newsrooms are being urged to diversify more quickly
and deeply (ASNE, 2017). Gaining the trust of diverse audiences is vitally important for
news organizations, because trust and credibility are necessary for long term survival
(Williams, 2012). Also vital to the mission of journalism is the need to meet the
information needs of diverse audiences within a particular place, not just one narrow slice
of the population (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2014).
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While a lack of newsroom diversity and a lack of diverse representation in news
content have both been issues for years, they have become more urgent at this critical
moment in U.S. history. It is, therefore, problematic to address politically contentious
issues, such as immigration, without addressing how language plays into the way diverse
audiences can access, understand and believe what they read in the news. A key element
for communication is language. Thinking about better coverage and representation of the
Hispanic population in the U.S. means that journalists must consider the role the Spanish
language plays in an English language news ecosystem.
Using the Spanish language is critical for reporters when speaking to many people
who have emigrated from Spanish-speaking countries to the U.S., allowing reporters to
share stories with this population. Time and time again, English-speaking reporters find
themselves unable to communicate with sources and subjects of stories, because many
Spanish-speaking adults from Latin America cannot speak English with fluency, or do
not speak it at all. Examples abound in many newsrooms. At the Reno television station
KRNV, the family members of a child accused of bringing a gun to school spoke only
Spanish, and the English-speaking reporters needed to interview them. The television
journalists ended up inviting a Spanish-speaking employee from the billing department of
the TV station accompany them on an interview (D. DiPietro, personal communication,
September 1, 2017). I, the author of this study, have also experienced this need to speak
Spanish through my work as an immigration reporter, learning that, many times,
individuals deported from the U.S. can only give first-hand accounts of life in U.S.
detention centers in Spanish. Without being able to understand Spanish, I would have
been cut off from learning about this experience and unable to report these stories fully.
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Business and Political Spanish-English Communication
Navigating media communications in Spanish and English is also helpful from a
business perspective to develop a loyalty with one’s audience due to the emotional
connection that language provides. As an example, some English speakers prefer to
watch soccer games in Spanish because they enjoy the passionate tone of the Spanish
commentators (Ramos, 2014).
Developing loyalty with the Hispanic audience in the U.S. is of interest for
businesses because, as the bilingual consumer audience grows, business opportunities
will result. According to Nielsen, the growth in Hispanic buying power is more than
double that of non-Hispanic buying power (Nielsen, 2016). As such, major companies
including Target are going to extensive lengths to speak to this audience directly and
interact with different Spanish-speaking members of the U.S. media audience. Large
corporations like Target are now investing in advertisements in Spanish that include
Latino cultural concepts, like the “sobremesa” or the time in Latino culture where, after a
group meal, a family typically lingers around the dining table to talk. This strategy is in
sharp contrast to Target’s earlier approach of directly translating their English-language
ads into Spanish (Masunaga, 2015).
The Hispanic population is also a large political audience; political campaigns are
frequently geared toward Hispanics (Subervi-Vélez, 2008, p. 21). Politically powerful
politicians are targeting Latino audiences using both English and Spanish to appeal to
voters because Latinos are an “integral part of this country’s political dynamics”
(Subervi-Vélez, 2008, p. 4). While there is a substantial body of analysis comparing
Spanish-only and English-only political advertising, it is unclear how political advertising
7
in these two languages impacts the bilingual news audience. Researcher Subervi-Vélez
notes that bilinguals significantly increase the potential circle of influence for Spanish-
language media through interpersonal communication with Spanish-only and English-
only speakers (2008, p. 58). Understanding the advertising market for bilingual
messaging is important for news organizations, many of which are dependent on
advertising revenue for survival.
Essentially, although an important segment of U.S. news, bilingual Spanish-
English media has yet to be examined to the same extent as Spanish or English-only
media. Therefore, this exploratory study analyzes the ways that bilingual reporting is
being used to communicate with the bilingual audience more fully. To understand this
media landscape, in-depth, in-person interviews were conducted with 11 bilingual
Spanish-English journalists in the western United States. The intent was to better
understand the motivations and methods of professional bilingual journalists, to identify
their practices and develop an understanding of how a bilingual approach to journalism
better addresses audience needs.
Literature Review
While many still consider bilingual journalism to be a “fledgling form of
journalism” (Lewis, 2008, p. 409), Spanish-language bilingual media are not new in the
United States. In the 19th century, there were bilingual Spanish-English newspapers in the
Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean ports for merchants in the area (Wilson & Gutiérrez, 1995,
pp. 177-181). Today, Spanish-language and bilingual media outlets are growing. The
Spanish-language television network Univision is the fourth largest television network in
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the United States. In certain markets and time slots, Univision is the most-watched
network (Allen, 2012). Univision was also elevated in visibility to the bilingual and
English-speaking audiences by hosting the 2012 presidential election debates, in English.
However, much of the existing literature analyzing both Spanish-language and
English-language media focuses on the analysis of stereotypes about minorities and the
underrepresentation of minorities. According to Subervi-Vélez and Vargas, “Latinos have
been underrepresented as sources and subjects of news over the years and depicted as a
burden for society in issues relating to immigration, crime and affirmative action”
(Subervi-Vélez, 2005; Vargas, 2000). In another study, Americans surveyed held more
negative stereotypes about Latinos if those Americans listened to conservative talk radio,
than if they listened to NPR (Reny & Manzano, 2016). These studies have yielded
valuable insight about the lack of accurate representation of Latinos in mainstream
media.
Scholars are also examining political communication to Hispanic audiences. One
such study comparing Spanish and English-language media illustrates how Hispanic
populations have become a new target audience for political advertisements because
Hispanics are part of a growing population of potential voters. Abrajano and
Panagopoulos have determined that, in order to mobilize people to vote in political
elections, Latino turnout increases with both English-language and Spanish-language
media content (2011). However, English-language content was effective for increasing
mobilization for everyone, while the Spanish-language content only helped with voting
mobilization for low-propensity voters, or those who do not vote frequently, and for those
whose primary language was Spanish (Abrajano & Panagopoulos, 2011). As this political
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advertising example shows, Spanish-language media are often targeted at a different
demographic group than English-language media. Commonly, Spanish-language media
are consumed by immigrant Latinos with a lower education level than Latinos who
consume their news in English.
A content analysis comparing Spanish-only and English-only media shows that the
same issue is often framed differently depending on the language of publication. Branton
and Dunaway investigated newspapers from an economic perspective, drawing the
conclusion that, in order to maximize their profits and appeal to the largest possible
segment of their readers, Spanish-language newspapers publish more immigration stories
than English-language newspapers. Many of these Spanish-language immigration stories
have a positive tone, while the tone of immigration stories in English-language
newspapers is more negative (Branton & Dunaway, 2008). Because the bilingual
Spanish-English audience is yet another linguistic and cultural group, journalists need to
employ unique strategies and styles to reach this group as well.
Spanish-English Bilingual News Consumers in the U.S.
When considering the news-consuming Latino audience in any medium, a spectrum
of linguistic ability is apparent. Some Latinos are completely fluent in Spanish and
English, others are Spanish-dominant and understand some English, and some speak
English and understand some Spanish. Many Millennial or younger, U.S. - born Latinos,
fall into this last category, consuming their news in English. The Pew Research Center
reports that 91% of Millennial Latinos consume some of their news in English, while
68% of these Millennial Latinos consume some of their news in Spanish (Flores &
Lopez, 2018).
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It is well-established that the core members of the bilingual Spanish-English audience
in the United States are Hispanics who use the English language (Rodriguez, 1999, p.
133). In much sociology, linguistic, and historical literature, the use of a “dominant
society language,” is seen as a way to absorb an ethnic minority into the larger society
(Fishman, 1972, 1989). However, Rodriguez points out that, “in the case of contemporary
English language and bilingual Latino-oriented media production, the embrace of the
English language is not equated with the erasure of these media’s distinct ethnoracial
identity” (Rodriguez, 1999, p. 134). Therefore, the combination of English and Spanish
language in U.S. society is important for many Hispanics as part of their identity. The
combination of Hispanic culture with life in the United States is not completely
straightforward, however. There are plenty of English-language Latino publications, like
Hispanic Business, which have shunned the Spanish language, but maintain a clear
Hispanic ethnic identification (Rodriguez, 1999, p. 139). Understanding the many ways
that identity is expressed in media help to define the publications that publish in English
or Spanish only, or, decide to work bilingually. Language is an expression of cultural
identity, but so are the types of stories, visual elements, topics, and sources used in a
particular publication.
There are also different styles for publishing journalistic work in Spanish and
English. An example of a bilingual publication is Vista, a newspaper insert popular in the
1980s and 1990s, which featured articles in English about Hispanic-related issues, as well
as two articles exclusively in Spanish per issue, printed without a translation (Rodriguez,
1999, p. 136). However, publishing several Spanish-language original journalistic works
in an English-language magazine is only one type of bilingual publication. Many
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publications publish exclusively in Spanish or in English. Some rare publications publish
their content in both Spanish and English. Others publish in Spanish and use the
appropriate English words, which is an approach being used more and more, and others
publish in English and use select Spanish words, where appropriate. Some recent
publications are starting to produce work which intertwines Spanish and English words
and phrases into the same sentence.
While this range of bilingual publications makes it clear that there is a large possible
audience for Spanish-English bilingual news, in recent history several obstacles have kept
bilingual media from being successful. The first obstacle is the difficulty of identifying
bilingual consumers. As Rodriguez (1999) states, the bilingual sector of U.S. Hispanic
media is still small because “from a marketing/audience research point of view, the
bilingual Hispanic audience is not currently efficiently identifiable, measurable or
targetable, compared to either the English or the Spanish-language Hispanic audience”
(Rodriguez, 1999, p. 134). According to Canclini, one of the reasons this group is
difficult to target is its “hybridity between Latino culture and U.S. culture” (García
Canclini, 1995). Another obstacle to identifying this bilingual population of media
consumers is that advertising budgets are allocated by language, so it is easier for
advertisers to produce marketing geared towards English or Spanish speakers, but not
both.
However, though it is difficult, efforts are made regularly to create bilingual Spanish-
English media. Attempts were made in the late 1990s to “re-create characteristics of
bilingual media as positive, having English-language programs on Spanish channels” as
well as the use of “Spanglish,” or the combination of Spanish and English (Rodriguez,
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1999, pp. 134-136). In 2014, Mike Rose, the executive vice president of advertisement
sales at the television network Telemundo explained: “In the past there was a Hispanic
marketplace and an English-language marketplace. That concept is outdated" (Consoli,
2014). Viacom’s Jose Tillan argues that today’s millennial Latinos would like to see
more television programming that reflects their complex cultural reality, in English,
Spanish, or both. Specifically, 49% of those surveyed by Viacom wanted to see more
bilingual and bicultural programming (Tillan, 2012). Even networks like Univision are
starting to add English subtitles to their Spanish-language soap opera programming
(Allen, 2012). These efforts illustrate that a mix of Spanish and English is developing in a
number of media outlets where it did not exist before. Social media platforms also offer
new opportunities for media experimentation in Spanish and English, although it is still
largely unknown how the language used on social media relates to cultural identification
of consumers. However, the research which exists about Spanish language and English
language social networking sites (SNS), does indicate the use of SNS in Spanish in the
United States significantly predicted participants’ Hispanic cultural orientations (Li &
Liu, 2017).
Bilingual Journalism
There appears to be little scholarly literature addressing the benefits and obstacles of
journalistic reporting in two languages. Few studies have investigated the challenges of
journalistic translation from Spanish to English and vice versa. In a study analyzing the
journalistic translations for the BBC World Service, the conclusion was drawn that “Even
the seemingly simplest linguistic transformations are evidently transformative in
journalistic practice, be it by contents or by the discursive tone implied or smuggled in”
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(Baumann, Gillespie, & Sreberny, 2011, p. 137). The idea that translation is “evidently
transformative” means that language contains many layers of meaning and subtle
differences in translation can have significant impacts on how people understand the
news. Existing research on news translation is relatively weak in articulating the nuances
of translating Spanish and English news media in the United States. The majority of the
time, journalists learn through practice how differences and errors in translation affect
what they intend to communicate.
Much of the current research on English and Spanish-language media focuses on
Spanish-only and English-only final media products. Studies do not analyze the bilingual
processes needed to produce that media, nor does it touch at all on the existing bilingual
publications currently producing media content, many of which are new. The products of
these bilingual publications impact the information available to society and how society
views itself. Because individual journalists are responsible for conducting the actual work
of choosing news subjects, deciding who to interview and in what language, they are the
ones actually carrying out bilingual journalism at this point in U.S. news media. Thus,
conducting research into individual journalistic practice seems to be the most effective
way to understand how bilingual journalism is being practiced. The research question for
this project is therefore twofold: How are bilingual journalists responding linguistically
and culturally to the needs of a growing bilingual Spanish-speaking audience?
Methodology
This project is an exploratory, qualitative study which uses in-depth interviews to
answer the research question. In-depth interviews were chosen for this exploratory
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project because they yield richer data and are most appropriate for a small population
group. Surveys would not have allowed for in-depth analysis of the subject and a content
analysis would not have addressed the question of why or how journalists reported the
stories as they did, as self-reflection was needed from the journalists themselves, not just
an analysis of the content they produced.
Interviews also serve better than a content analysis because the project focus was
on the reporting process, rather than published content. Interviews are especially
conducive for collecting information from journalists because journalists are familiar
with the interview method and are generally comfortable sharing information about
perspectives, authority, and experience.
To identify relevant interview subjects, defined as “professional bilingual
Spanish-English journalists,” the snowball sampling method was used. This method was
chosen because there are no directories or associations for bilingual journalists.
Identifying appropriate interview subjects could only be done through networks of
contacts. Snowball sampling is defined as:
One subject gives the researcher the name of another subject, who in turn
provides the name of a third, and so on. This strategy can be viewed as a response
to overcoming the problems associated with sampling concealed hard to reach
populations such as the criminal and the isolated” (Atkinson and Flint, 2001).
Snowball sampling is a useful methodology for exploratory, qualitative and descriptive
research (Baltar and Brunet, 2012, p. 60). To select the journalists to interview, I
consulted leaders in the field of bilingual journalism via email and used virtual, online
journalism and professional websites, such as LinkedIn and Facebook groups for the
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National Society of Hispanic Journalists. As Benfield and Szlemko (2006) also note,
“Virtual snowball sampling not only facilitates the access to ‘hard to reach’ populations,
but also can expand sample size and the scope of the study and reduce costs and time.”
Given the scope of the research, the following criteria helped insure the
interviewees could provide relevant information: 1) the interviewees were bilingual in
Spanish and English, using both languages in some capacity in the interview and/or
production process; 2) based in California, a state with a high concentration of Spanish
speakers and Spanish-language reporters geographically close to Reno, Nevada, where
this research project took place; 3) consisted of heritage speakers and those who have
learned Spanish as a second language; 4) had three or more years of journalism
experience as a working journalist and are currently working for a news media
organization as a journalist; 5) worked in a variety of mediums, including radio, print,
and/or television. Due to the spectrum of Spanish-language comprehension and fluency
in the United States, not all reporters interviewed had the same proficiency levels in both
Spanish and English; some were English dominant, while others were Spanish dominant.
This project was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of
Nevada, Reno, Research Integrity Office in November, 2017. The regions of Los Angeles
and San Francisco were selected as the focus areas for these in-person journalist
interviews because these regions met the criteria in terms of population, accessibility and
size of media market.
Using the snowball method, experts in the bilingual Spanish-English media field
recommended at least one bilingual reporter who met the predetermined requirements in
the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. The reporters in those regions were then
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contacted via an introductory IRB-approved email asking them to participate in the study
by meeting for an in-person interview. Some required a follow-up phone call, and
regardless of their availability, the reporters who responded were also asked to suggest
other reporters to interview in the region. The suggested reporters were then evaluated
with the criteria listed for this study using information from personal email
correspondence between the reporters and me, as well as the reporters’ online presence
on LinkedIn, their personal websites and work they published online. The primary
purpose of looking at the online presence of these reporters was to determine if they use
both Spanish and English in the reporting process, the publication process, or both
reporting and publication. Once it was determined that the reporters qualified as working
bilingual journalists, they were contacted by me using the same IRB email sent to the
initial contacts. All interviewees were asked to meet in-person for the interviews, in order
to maximize understanding and obtain as much information as possible from the subjects
based on their oral responses, tone of voice, and body language.
Using the email and phone correspondence process, seven interviews were
arranged for the Los Angeles area, and eight were set up for the San Francisco/Oakland
region. Out of those 15 interviews, 11 were conducted with working reporters who met
the criteria established for this project to be considered a currently working, bilingual,
Spanish-English reporter. Ten of the interviews took place in-person, and one was
conducted on the phone. The four interviews conducted but not analyzed for this project
were conducted with other professionals involved in the bilingual Spanish-English news
industry who were able to provide context and additional perspectives, but did not qualify
as working bilingual reporters. These additional interviewees included professors of
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bilingual Spanish-English journalism, as well as people with experience in bilingual
Spanish-English marketing and translation. As per the requirements of the research
integrity office, all interview subjects were promised anonymity and all specific
identifying information was omitted from the content included in this project.
The interviews were conducted between February - April 2018 and lasted an
average of 49 minutes each. (See Appendix B for additional details about each
interview.) All interviews were conducted one-on-one with each interviewee and
followed a semi-structured list of questions approved by the IRB. Certain themes were
expanded more in some interviews than others due to the flow of natural conversation,
the type of journalistic work, and areas of expertise. In either English or Spanish,
whichever language was more comfortable for the participants, the interviewees were
asked to describe their work as a bilingual journalist. They explained their specific
processes for reporting and which aspects are conducted in English and which in Spanish.
The interviewees were also asked about audience reactions to their reporting and the
technology they use, such as language translation apps, and they were asked how their
work adheres to traditional reporting standards, as well as how it varies. One focus for
this research was to understand the situations in which it is essential to have bilingual
Spanish-English skills as a reporter in the United States, if there are such situations.
Reporters were also asked about the obstacles they face professionally as a result of
working bilingually as opposed to monolingually. The questions also focused on the time
and resources needed to make bilingual reporting and publication possible, as well as
how journalists see the process and publication of bilingual reporting evolving in the near
future. (See Appendix A for the list of interview questions.)
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All 11 interviews were audio recorded with advance consent from the
interviewees and transcribed in approximately 15 minutes using Temi automated
transcription software, which produced a written transcript for each audio interview. It
then took about 3 hours each to manually correct errors in the transcripts that the Temi
software was not able to transcribe correctly. The one interview conducted in Spanish
was manually transcribed and edited by three native Spanish speakers (who are also
language teachers) who volunteered to help with the transcription for this study since the
Temi software only transcribes English. The word-for-word transcription for the one
interview in Spanish (approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes in length) took about 20
hours total for three people to complete.
Once a correct transcript of each interview was complete, it was printed out and
coded by hand for major themes and sub-themes using the Saldaña method of qualitative
coding (Saldaña, 2014). I looked for common ideas and phrases in each transcript,
assigning them labels during First Cycle coding. Each label is was intended to “assign an
essence-capturing attribute to the language-based data” of the interview (Saldaña, 2014,
p. 72). For example, the term “motivation,” was a label which explained why each
journalist was compelled to reporter bilingually. (See Appendix C for an example of a
manually coded interview transcript.) This First Cycle coding took about 2 additional
hours per transcript. These labelling terms were then grouped together into more
comprehensive themes during Second Cycle coding, which took about 5 hours total. To
be able to analyze the content from all the interviews, the interview responses selected
from the First Cycle coding were placed in a Google Sheets document, organized by label
and theme. (See Appendix D for an example screenshot of the Google Sheets document
19
used.) Using the groups and sub-groups of themes created in the Second Cycle coding,
the results of the Second Cycle coding were analyzed in a narrative description format,
which allows the researcher to “outline the plots of human action and how participants
changed throughout the course of the study” (Saldaña, 2014, p. 91). In this case, the
narrative description describes the reporters’ processes and thinking about bilingual
Spanish-English reporting. These results note commonalities, differences, and general
response trends among the reporters.
The conclusions drawn from the commonalities, differences, and general response
trends in these interviews were then tested in-person on other experts in the field of
bilingual journalism at the International Symposium on Online Journalism in Austin,
Texas through conversations and reflections. The results and discussion included below
are all conclusions that resonated as accurate, fair statements when discussed with the
bilingual media experts at the conference.
Results
Participant Profiles
The goal of this study was to analyze how bilingual journalism is conceptualized
and practiced by journalists working in regions with high concentrations of English and
Spanish speakers. I conducted 11 interviews with professional journalists working in
California, six females and five males, most of whom had decades of professional
journalism experience. The interviewees included a mix of heritage English and Spanish
speakers, working in a variety of mediums, including radio, print and film. The
interviewees can be grouped into three categories: (1) those who immigrated to the U.S.
20
as young adults, (2) those who were the children of immigrants living in the U.S., and (3)
those who have no ties to immigrant families but were born and raised speaking English
in the U.S. Overall, six radio journalists, three print journalists, one filmmaker and one
multimedia journalist were interviewed. Seven native Spanish speakers and four native
English speakers were interviewed. See Table 1 for a complete list of interviewees and
selected demographic information.
Group one consisted of five of the 11 bilingual journalists interviewed, and these
interviewees (Reporters 1, 2, 5, 7, and 9) had the most professional experience – an
average of 30 years of experience working in the field. They were immigrants from Latin
American countries who moved to the United States as young adults. Consequently their
first language was Spanish. Most of them took English classes as part of their elementary
and high school curriculum in their native countries but acquired the majority of their
English education and immersion once they moved to the United States.
Group two consisted of three bilingual journalists (Reporters 3, 4, and 8) who
were the children of Spanish-speaking immigrants, but were raised for all or almost all of
their childhood in the United States. They grew up speaking Spanish at home, but learned
English throughout their entire education. While they do work in Spanish, these reporters
consider themselves to be English dominant as opposed to Spanish dominant and said
they have a better command of specialized vocabulary in English, such as legal jargon,
than they do in Spanish. These reporters have all made a point to travel to Spanish-
speaking countries as adults to maintain their Spanish skills.
21
TABLE 1: Description of Participants Interviewed for this Study
Participant First
Language
Dominant
Language
Years of
Bilingual
Reporting
Geographic
Reporting
Location
Education
Level
Gender Medium
Work
of Country
of Origin
1
Spanish Equal
20+
Los
Angeles
Bachelors Female Print
Venezuela
2
Spanish Spanish 20+
Los
Angeles
High
School
Male
Radio
Mexico
3
Spanish English
20+
Los
Angeles
Bachelors Male
Radio
Mexico
4
Spanish English
10+
Oakland
Masters
Female Radio
United
States
5
Spanish Spanish 20+
Oakland
Bachelors Male
Print/Radio Chile
6
English
Equal
10+
Oakland
Masters
Female Radio
United
States
7
Spanish Equal
10+
San
Francisco
Masters
Female Radio
Mexico
8
English
English
10+
Berkeley
Masters
Male
Film
United
States
9
Spanish Equal
20+
San
Francisco
Doctorate Male
Radio
Mexico
10
English
English
20+
San
Francisco
Masters
Female Print
United
States
11
English
English
10+
Oakland
Masters
Female Multimedia United
States
Group three of the interviewees (Reporters 6, 10, and 11) consisted of three people born
and raised in the United States who did not grow up speaking Spanish. They learned to
speak, read and write Spanish as part of their high school, college, or professional
journalism careers. All of these reporters also spent time living and reporting in Spanish-
speaking countries, which helped provide them with immersion and cultural context for
the Spanish that they use in their reporting today.
The reason radio journalists are over-represented in the sample population may be
due to the fact that the author initiated the snowball method with several radio journalists,
and radio reporters are likely to recommend other radio reporters for interviews. Or, it
may be that the oral nature of radio makes it an easier medium in which to practice
22
bilingual journalism, or the audiences for bilingual journalism may be more likely to use
radio than other mediums.
The following section identifies seven themes that emerged from an analysis of
the interview transcripts. Each theme is described and followed by verbatim quotes from
the interviewees, which are used to illustrate the ideas that relate to each theme. Taken as
a whole, the themes represent the main findings from this research.
Bilingual Reporters’ Self-perceived Roles
All of the bilingual reporters interviewed said they were motivated by a desire to
be a bridge between different communities, seeing their role as connecting cultural
groups. They stressed that serving this purpose is even more vital in 2018 because
Spanish language reporting is so closely tied with the politically charged topic of
immigration, which was an undercurrent theme alluded to throughout all of the
interviews. For example:
It's great to be able to work in both languages and to be able to bridge the gap of
cultures and to explain one culture to the other and vice-versa. (Reporter 1)
I see my role as a conduit. I guess there is some part of analysis or heart that
comes into reporting, so it's not just relaying information. I do think that I see
myself as a bridge. (Reporter 6)
I have very strong Spanish speaking skills yet I’m interpreting experiences of
Spanish speakers for that English speaking audience. (Reporter 3)
We can talk to groups of people that aren't talking to each other. You know,
there's lots of cases where there's just complete misunderstanding between the
boss and the worker because they don't speak the same language. (Reporter 8)
23
In San Francisco for instance, we have a lot of Latino culture elements,
Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans. We try to cover everything
and we try to get as many people as possible that have different cultures, different
nationalities, on the air. The other part is the fact that a lot of Americans or non-
Spanish speakers, especially some older white folks, are really interested in the
atrocities that have been committed by ICE (Immigrations and Customs
Enforcement). So we try to get some of those people that have an understanding
of what's really happening in the culture on the air so that they can explain to
other, non-Latino, non-Spanish speakers the gravity of the situation that we have.
(Reporter 9)
A bilingual publication serves to not only provide information and news coverage,
but as a way for the readers themselves to be able to bridge languages, which was
something I hadn't really thought about before in terms of the role of a bilingual
publication. (Reporter 11)
My independent body of work, has aired on a public radio station in Tijuana.
There, my focus is very much on getting those LA stories or American stories or
United States stories to an entirely Spanish-speaking community. So it is both a
labor of love and a labor of cultural affirmation. (Reporter 3)
As these quotes show, these reporters are trying to close gaps in understanding between
the Latino and non-Latino populations, those (including non-Spanish-speaking Latinos)
who do not speak Spanish and those who do, and between Spanish-speaking Latinos of
different countries. As part of that effort to connect people of different groups, these
reporters described their need to put explanatory content about cultural phenomenon and
24
concepts in their material, in order to increase understanding for groups not normally
impacted by the ideas being discussed. These reporters also said that one of the main
motivations for their work is to bring more voices of color into mainstream and local
media through news about and for communities of color.
The Bilingual Reporting Process
The interviews for this study also illustrated the broad range of reporting methods
and types of publications which can be considered “bilingual journalism.” As Table 2
depicts, some U.S. bilingual reporters publish mostly in Spanish, others in English. Both
of these groups conduct interviews and research in their non-publication language, be that
English or Spanish, in order to be as comprehensive as possible in their reporting.
Translation is a key element of the process of interviewing in one language and reporting
in another, and a variety of tools are used to make the process work.
Translation
Given the multilingual makeup of the United States, translation professionally and
informally is part of the daily lives of many journalists. While Bassnett states that
translation in its simplest form is “interlingual transfer for text A into text B,” they also
point out that translation for journalism requires additional synthesis and analysis in order
to convey news quickly and effectively for a specific audience (Conway & Bassnett,
2006). In order for translation to be accurate and useable in a journalistic setting, training
and experience are needed for high-quality translations which have a greater chance of
being well-received by the community for whom the translation is intended. English to
Spanish translation, or vice versa, is common in some publications, but the 11 interviews
analyzed for this study indicated that most news organizations do not take the time to
25
publish all of their content in both languages, largely due to the time and resources it
takes for translation. Though there are many approaches to translation, the reporters
interviewed did have some common strategies for successful translation, as well as
aspects of translation they found difficult. Among the reporters interviewed, it was
common for individual reporters and organizations to translate certain articles and
projects from their main language of publication if they thought the article’s subject
matter was relevant in the secondary language.
Representative of the reporters who agreed with this sentiment are the following:
The trends that I have seen in the past few years are that more and more news
outlets are trying to reach Spanish-speaking and other immigrant populations by
translating their articles into Spanish when they think that they're relevant to that
population. And I think that's a great trend that at least news outlets are starting
to think more about. (Reporter 11)
I'm constantly reading pieces of journalism in Spanish to try and see if there is
something in Spanish that will be interesting to the English audience. And if it is
really interesting, I do the translation. (Reporter 5)
26
TABLE 2: Languages Used by Reporters for Reporting and Publication
Participant Medium
Work
of
Dominant
Language for
Reporting
(including
interviews)
Primary
Language
of
Publication
Geographic
Reporting
Location
Tools Used
1
Print
Spanish (English
when needed)
Spanish
Los Angeles Dictionary
2
Radio
Spanish (English
when needed)
Spanish
Los Angeles Dictionary
3
Radio
English (Spanish
when needed)
English
Los Angeles Dictionary,
check
spell
4
Radio
English (Spanish
when needed)
English
Oakland
Dictionary,
other reporters
5
Print/Radio Spanish
Spanish
Oakland
Dictionary,
Google
Translate
6
Radio
Both languages
Both
Oakland
Word
Reference,
dictionary
7
Radio
English (Spanish
when needed)
English
San
Francisco
Dictionary,
Trint
transcription
software
8
Film
Both languages
Both
Berkeley
Dictionary
9
Radio
Spanish (live
interpretation of
interviews from
Spanish
San
Francisco
Dictionary
English to
Spanish for live
radio)
10
Print
Both languages
Both
San
Francisco
Dictionary,
testing
automatic
Spanish
translation
software for
entire news
website
11
Multimedia Both languages
Both
Oakland
Dictionary
27
Due to the fact that language dominance in Spanish and English varies widely
among the participants, the processes used by reporters for conducting interviews and
translating also varies. However, some commonalities emerged.
All reporters agreed with this sentiment, expressed by Reporter 1:
If the person is speaking English, I take notes in English. If the person is speaking
Spanish, I take notes in Spanish and I translate whatever I need.
While it might be expected that some reporters write the majority of their notes in their
dominant language, regardless of the language in which the quote was expressed, this
was not the case for the reporters interviewed for this study. The reporters interviewed
kept in line with the idea of verbatim quote accuracy, as a best practice for journalists,
and wrote down quotes exactly as they were uttered. Some even had the general habit of
audio recording all of their interviews in order to be able to listen to the tape after the
interview and make sure they translated the quote word-for-word, for all of their
interviews in English and Spanish.
However, Reporters 3, 6, and 7, all radio journalists, routinely try to conduct the
initial interview in the language in which they will publish the final story. For example, if
the reporter works for a predominantly English-language radio station, he or she will try
to have the interviewee speak in English, even if Spanish is the dominant language for the
interview subject. The logic provided for this interview approach is that the interview will
sound more direct and clean if there is no translation needed. For example:
Rather than have a voice-over, it is even better to have them say it in English in
their own words, even if it isn’t perfect English. So sometimes I will interview
28
them in the language that they feel best in, and then say, ‘Could you say that
again in English?’ And sometimes they try and they're fine. (Reporter 6)
I always ask them. But I'll be like, ‘It's better if we do it in English for me because
then the story's going to be in English.’ But if they have a really heavy accent
where I feel like people won't be able to understand what they're saying, then
we'll just do the interview in Spanish. (Reporter 7)
This translation dilemma is not only for those publishing in English; for reporters
publishing in Spanish, they sometimes interview people living in the United States who
do not speak Spanish of a caliber that is usable for publication. However, several
reporters explained that they approach people and build rapport pre-interview in the
subject’s dominant language, and will only conduct the interview in the language
preferred by their organization if the person is sufficiently clear in that language. If it is
clear a translation will be needed, the common answer for broadcast journalists
(including radio and television) was that they prefer to paraphrase what was said by the
interviewee, as opposed to having a word-for-word translation voiced by someone else,
as they feel it is more direct and helps their reporting maintain a desired level of
intimacy.
All of the reporters interviewed routinely consult Spanish and English dictionaries
and described the need to go beyond using Google Translate or another automatic
translation app because they thought those tools lacked the context and nuance needed for
accurate translation. Specifically, these reporters were wary of translations that were
literal and did not take tone and situation into consideration. Representative of the
reporters who agreed with this sentiment are the following:
29
It's labor intensive, it's just not translating what they're saying, and you could do
a crude translation, but actually getting the texture and the richness of their
language … It's not a word-for-word translation. Translation is an interesting
process, you are creating a new piece that reflects the beauty of the old piece, and
that's hard. (Reporter 10)
[In Spanish] the woman says, ‘Me sentí tan bonito.’ So how do you translate
that? She’s not saying she felt ‘pretty.’ Google Translate would translate that to,
‘I felt so pretty.’ One of our bilingual reporters came up with the right translation
and I thought it worked perfectly; the right translation is, ‘I felt so special.’ You
won't find that in any translation that ‘bonito’ means ‘special.’ So that is just an
example of something that another producer or somebody else would have
translated, in my mind, incorrectly. (Reporter 8)
There are horrible translations [from English to Spanish] everywhere you go. It's
like an insult. What we need is the [cultural] interpretation. If you do translation
that is mechanical, Google Translator can do it. (Reporter 5)
Some of the reporters advocated for professional translators, while others stressed the
utility of having reporters who are proficient as translators themselves. In addition to the
reporters knowing the reporting context for the situation in which the translation is
needed, the reporters can also provide cultural context which makes reporting in two
languages work. Often times, when dealing with creating Spanish-language content and
appropriate translations for the U.S. news market, reporters need an understanding of
different Spanish dialects, because the same word can mean different things in different
Spanish-speaking countries. For this very reason, several reporters were wary about using
30
Google Translate, because they knew that Google Translate would not understand
cultural and regional contexts.
We run into a lot of nuances with regions, dialects and how people say things in
different places. The biggest translation issue we came up with was that all the
women were referring to the foreman on their crew as their ‘mayor domo’ in
Spanish. We were translating that phrase to ‘foreman’ because that's who it was,
the ‘foreman,’ the ‘supervisor.’ Right before air, Univision came back to us and
said, ‘mayor domo’ doesn't mean that, it means, ‘caretaker.’ We said, ‘No, that's
not what we're talking about. ‘Caretaker’ may be what this word means to you,
but every woman in our film in this country uses ‘mayor domo’ to mean
‘foreman.’’ So this is what the word means in this context. (Reporter 8).
In the above example and others, Spanish words do not only mean something
different to people from different Spanish-speaking countries, the words have taken on a
separate meaning for U.S. Spanish speakers.
Medium-specific translation challenges. As explained previously, translations
are not ideal in radio because voice-over translations can sound awkward and make a
source sound less authentic. The Spanish language reporters interviewed for this study
explained that they face special difficulties finding Spanish-speaking sources who are
considered experts, such as professors and government officials. As a result, these
reporters have the advantage of being able to conduct their interviews in English, but they
then must then provide a voiced-over translation of the interview in Spanish for
broadcast.
31
When we go looking for Spanish-speaking experts in certain fields, there aren’t
any. There are very few experts in Spanish because less people in the Latino
population get doctoral degrees. (Reporter 2).
When dealing with on-camera subjects who speak two different languages, the
bilingual reporter/filmmaker interviewed explained that it is common for some English-
language organizations to handle the needed translation in a different way than their
Spanish-language counterparts do. Reporter 8, a filmmaker, explained that the English
language outlet Frontline always subtitles foreign languages, such as Spanish, while the
Spanish language organization Univision dubs Spanish voices over any English spoken.
These two different policies may sound straightforward, but Reporter 8 said that these
two different approaches make it difficult to film in a style that works for both outlets.
However, these distinct translation styles for film originate from different needs
for different audiences. Reporter 8 explained: “One of the reasons why Frontline will
subtitle and Univision will dub is because Univision has come to the conclusion that a lot
of their audience won't or can't read. So the audience wants to have the translation
spoken to them.”
At the same time, the reporter explained that subtitles are sometimes preferred because
some viewers like to hear the original, natural voice of the person speaking, as it adds a
level of authenticity and credibility to the work.
While print reporters do not have the same translation challenges as the bilingual
broadcast reporters, they do run into similar translation issues when using social media
accounts for their print organizations. Reporter 1 works for a Spanish-language
newspaper and explained:
32
Whenever I've done Facebook Live in English, people on our Facebook page
don't like it, because many of them are in Mexico or somewhere else. So that
audience is probably different from the newspaper. (Reporter 1).
In this case, the main audience for the Facebook Live video primarily speaks Spanish,
even though the video is taking place in Los Angeles.
Advantages of Bilingual Journalism
Despite acknowledging that reporting in both Spanish and English requires
additional time and cultivation of language and culture skills, the 11 reporters
interviewed said they consider their bilingual capabilities to be an advantage in their
work.
The reporters all shared similar sentiments:
You cannot really be a communicator or a journalist in this town or in this
country if you don't speak English. But if you speak Spanish, you have double the
advantage. (Reporter 1)
I feel like it's always an asset. I learned early on when I was in LA doing a lot of
immigration work and doing translation, being bilingual has just been such an
asset and I don't ever see it not being relevant. (Reporter 4)
I don't think being bilingual needs to be an impediment. Basically it adds to the
story, to have the person's voice (in their own language). So in a way I feel like I
have the best of both worlds. (Reporter 7)
The reporters also explained that their Spanish skills have led them to work in
collaboration with editors and other senior reporters when they were junior employees,
which they said has been helpful for their careers. The reporters shared anecdotes about
33
being able to get a lead for a story that allowed them to report information that a
monolingual reporter would not have been able to find. Reporter 3, who primarily works
for an English-language news organization, described two instances when he was able to
get important information for stories specifically because he spoke Spanish:
One of my first stories was the collapse of a two story apartment building near
downtown that left one person dead. On the scene, talking to people in Spanish
led me to information that the building had been inspected a few days before
collapse.
For a different story about a bus crash, Reporter 3 said: I was able to get
interviews from Spanish-speaking immigrant ladies who had ridden before with
the bus driver who died in this bus crash. They said they saw him fall asleep
driving. As soon as I heard that I thought, I haven't heard this before. This is new
information.
Challenges to Bilingual Journalism
While overall the reporters described many benefits associated with their
bilingualism, some received negative feedback on their work from other English-
language journalists and from people in the community who think the reporters
themselves are activists because they work for Spanish-language publications. The
reporters believe that some of this negative feedback is politically motivated. They have
also received feedback that some of their audience members think those who work in
Spanish-language news are less educated than those who work in English-language news.
Reporter 6 explained the following:
34
I think that there's a huge misconception that Spanish language media is not
serious journalism, that it's activist journalism, and I don't think that that's true. I
think that in most journalism you're trying to reach the audience and have the
audience think about something and maybe decide to do something different. I do
think there's a huge prejudice around that. That's what I was getting to when I
talked about the difference between reporting for Spanish language and English
language media, there was a sense that because I was writing for [name of
Spanish-language publication] that I must be an activist and not actually a
serious journalist. And the perception of it seems different, especially with an
English language audience. (Reporter 6)
Trends in Bilingual Journalism
These reporters perceive bilingual journalism as becoming more important, more
accepted and more common in the current U.S. news media landscape. Reporters 1, 2, 5,
9, and 10 have worked as journalists in the U.S. bilingual Spanish-English media market
for more than 20 years and have noticed a marked increase in news organizations hiring
more bilingual reporters and producing bilingual content. Reporter 1 explained:
You used to have less people in American media or in English-speaking media
that were bilinguals. Increasingly, more and more of the immigration reporters in
English-speaking media are bilingual and many of them are from different
cultures, or Latino. When I arrived here, there was no one graduating from any
school in the U.S. that wanted to work in Spanish language television or print.
Everyone was Latin American. Everyone was an immigrant.
35
Overall, the reporters said they have seen a shift towards more news media accepting
bilingualism, whether that be in reporting or publication.
I think we're at the cusp (with bilingualism) because I think we are in a time
where people are more about embracing Spanish. Maybe times are different.
(Reporter 4).
Those who have worked in the industry for more than 20 years agree that there has been a
cultural shift regarding Spanish-English bilingual news.
I was doing bilingual broadcasting in 1972, and now there are stations that are
actually bilingual in Spanish and English. So that's the direction we’re going. In
the seventies there was an influx of Central Americans in particular that were
coming to the United States and they would be offended if we used too much
English. But now it's a whole different scene. Most of the Latinos speak English or
understand that we’re here to be understanding English. (Reporter 9).
Reporter 9 continued: If you walk around the Mission District (in San Francisco)
or a lot of places, people hablan español, hablan inglés, and they use words here
and there. So it is definitely a trend and obviously in the media it's also being
reflected. I don't think that the programming that we're doing right now would
have been acceptable some time ago even within the Latino community. The
Spanish broadcasting used to be very formal, before. So it's changed a lot. Now
it's more the way that people talk, which is, de la manera que hablamos todos, en
español y inglés (the way everyone talks, in Spanish and English).
Yes, I do see more and more mixing of languages. It is more and more the way we
live. The way we operate in our lives is what we want in the media. (Reporter 1)
36
While the reporters acknowledge that more Spanish and English reporting and production
is taking place in the U.S. now than in the past, the journalists interviewed are still unsure
if “Spanglish” efforts with Spanish and English words mixed together in the same story
will be successful.
Reporters 2, 4, and 8 all explained why they have doubt about mixing English and
Spanish:
If I can read English, why do I need something catered to me in English and
Spanish? (Reporter 4)
Well, I have my doubts. Looking at it from my experience, my kids consume their
news in English. When we’re talking about topics in-depth, I think that journalism
should be content totally in English or totally in Spanish. When we’ve translated
radio programs, they’re boring. So it’s important to provide the content in one of
the two languages. (Reporter 2)
There are more and more bilingual millennials who are bilingual or are more
comfortable with Spanish, but I'm not necessarily seeing it reflected in the media.
When I was working with a producer with Univision we were hoping for a day
when we could just have the program be bilingual without subtitles or dubbing
and the audience would get it because the audience would be bilingual. I don't
think we're there in any kind of mass way and I don't think we will get there
either. I mean, Spanglish is definitely something that people identify with and feel
comfortable with. But I don't know that it's something that you can do reporting
in, right? (Reporter 8)
37
Future of Spanish-English Bilingual Media
One central point discussed by several reporters was the idea that there is a need
for more journalism coverage about and for the Spanish-speaking population, in order for
Spanish speakers to have their concerns addressed and to promote a more informed
society. For example:
I would hope that Spanish-language journalism would continue to grow in the
U.S. because I think there's more need for, real, good, deep journalism in
Spanish. There are some great outlets and then there's a lot of commercial media
that I don't think are doing very good journalism most of the time. (Reporter 6)
I'm personally interested in addressing gaps and there is certainly a lot to be
desired in terms of coverage of immigrant communities in English. A way of
addressing those gaps is to develop real relationships with immigrant
communities to be able to do reporting in that space on the issues that are
affecting them about the information that they want. Doing so will provide better
coverage both for that community and for the wider public. (Reporter 11)
I feel the same way for Spanish language media and English mainstream media,
we need more of the cross-pollination so people can really understand each other.
(Reporter 7)
The reporters who were raised in the United States by Spanish-speaking immigrant
parents and are English dominant individually expressed concern that future generations
of Latinos will not maintain their Spanish skills. A quote from Reporter 4 summarizes the
feeling expressed separately by each of these interviewees:
38
Especially if you look at the millennial population who understands Spanish and
speaks it, there's a lot of connections to be made there. Whether the population of
Spanish speakers is growing or not, it's huge as it stands. And how many of those
of us that are the offspring of immigrants are going to maintain bilingualism?
Discussion
This discussion section expands on the seven themes identified in the Findings
section of this study, exploring the general concept of bilingual journalism, the roles of
bilingual reporters, and these reporters’ opinions about the direction of Spanish-English
reporting in the United States in the future.
What Does it Mean to Be a Bilingual Journalist?
People from many different backgrounds can be bilingual Spanish-English
reporters as there is no set path to entering this kind of journalism. After interviewing 11
bilingual journalists, I found there is no common definition for who is or is not a
bilingual Spanish-English reporter. The term is interpreted differently depending on the
journalist’s background. Those who grew up learning both English and Spanish did not
view their work as “bilingual reporting” because navigating Spanish and English
language and culture has always been a part of their lives. They did not see themselves as
doing anything unique, but instead viewed reporting and publication in two languages as
a normal practice. “I don't know if I'd consider myself a bilingual reporter. I'm a reporter
who happens to be bilingual” said Reporter 3.
Those who acquired their second language as young adults, however, were able to
articulate specific decisions they made in order to become proficient enough in Spanish
39
and English to report in both languages. For most of these reporters who learned their
second language later on, their decision process involved taking language courses in their
non-dominant language during high school and college.
A trend noted by the reporters interviewed for this study was that almost all
Spanish-language reporters 20 years ago used to be Spanish speakers who immigrated to
the U.S. Now the reporters working for Spanish-language publications are starting to
shift, with more second-generation U.S.-raised Spanish speakers working in the industry.
Within the last decade, Spanish-language university journalism classes have also started
to emerge at places such as The City University of New York, the University of Nevada,
Reno, and multiple California institutions, such as the University of Southern California,
California State University Long Beach, and San Francisco State University. When many
of the reporters who were interviewed for this study went to journalism school, there
were no options to take Spanish-language journalism courses as part of a U.S. college
curriculum.
What is the Reporter’s Role in Covering Bilingual Communities?
A large component of these reporters’ response to addressing the cultural needs of
their Spanish-speaking audience is related to how they conceptualize their journalistic
role. All respondents conveyed the idea that they see themselves as a “bridge.” They did
not use the term in a literal sense, but as a way to explain their job, which they described
as analyzing and explaining different cultures to their audiences in order to connect
different community groups. This idea was common for all interviewees, regardless of
their immigration background or their origin country. Understanding this common
40
motivation for bilingual reporters is useful context as additional attention and interest are
placed on topics closely related to Spanish-English reporting, such as immigration.
Reporters who are motivated by the idea of increasing cultural understanding may
also be more prone to work in two languages at some point in their careers. These
reporters all spent extended amounts of time working and living internationally, which
reinforced their common desire to learn and appreciate other cultures. Looking forward,
the United States population will be comprised of a larger number of English-dominant
Latinos, so cultural understanding and cultural affirmation of these Spanish-speakers will
be the primary ingredient needed to connect with this audience, even if all news produced
for this community is published in English.
Common Practices for Bilingual Reporting
Looking at the practices described by these 11 reporters, certain habits and ways
of working seemed to be common to all of them. For example, one common practice for
these journalists was to spend time in communities that were not their own, which
allowed them to report on issues of interest to those groups and to develop the
connections needed for accurate, high-quality reporting. This advice was offered by
multiple interviewees. Reporter 3 offered the example of making an effort to learn about
the Salvadoran and Guatemalan communities in Los Angeles, even though he himself is
Mexican. The Spanish language was not a barrier for this reporter to understand these
groups, but he lacked the cultural understanding needed to report on these Spanish-
speaking communities. Spending time knowing the community helps these journalists
determine what medium is the most effective for those audiences.
41
A second common practice of the interviewees was to deliberate about the
medium used to reach their bilingual audience. The medium matters when considering
how to report in multiple languages. The medium-specific challenges of reporting in two
languages in print, radio, and film were underscored by several participants.
Understanding how voiceovers, translations, subtitles, and other topics need to be
navigated requires linguistic and cultural sensibility. These interviews illustrated the need
for reporters working in these mediums to have a clear understanding of what news
presentation format works best for their audience. Many of these medium-specific issues
relate to translation, and while translating English news content into Spanish is a useful
first step for many news organizations, the journalists stressed that more than translation
is needed.
Above all, the third common practice for those who produced news in Spanish
was that Spanish news content needs to have a focus and tone appropriate for the
Spanish-speaking news audience. Specifically, the stories produced need to not only be
about the Spanish-speaking community, they need to be news for the Spanish speaking
community with resources and information helpful to them.
The Purpose of Translation in Bilingual Spanish-English Reporting
Currently translation is the main way that the growing U.S. Spanish-speaking
population is being reached by bilingual reporters. Several reporters interviewed work
primarily for English-language publications and translate the interviews they conduct in
Spanish into English. These reporters see it as their duty to increase the visibility and
voices of people of color, especially Latinos, by including them in their stories. The
reporters noted that conducting interviews in the more dominant language of their
42
interview subject made the interview subject more comfortable and helped establish
rapport with the interviewee. The translation of specific news content from English
thought to be of particular relevance to the Spanish-speaking community is a common
strategy used to reach the Spanish-speaking community.
The nuance and sensitivity needed for successful translations, both linguistically
and culturally, were emphasized by all of the reporters interviewed. It would be helpful
for more newsrooms and employers to invest in translation training for their reporters,
due to a lack of full-time translators and the fact that journalism expertise is useful when
doing journalism translation. However, it is also acknowledged that many reporters gain
these skills through practice and experience in the field.
A Need for Reporting in Spanish
Although translation is a first step for many news organizations in providing
content for both English and Spanish speakers, the bilingual journalists interviewed said
that a primary reason they choose to report bilingually stems from wanting to satisfy the
need for more in-depth, investigative Spanish-language and bilingual reporting in the
United States. These reporters also articulated several misconceptions that English-
language audiences hold about Spanish-language news, such as the view that those
producing Spanish-language news are not as well educated as those creating English-
language news. Another misrepresentation of Spanish-language media noticed by the
bilingual reporters in this study is that they as reporters receive feedback that the news
they create in Spanish is activism, not journalism. The reporters interviewed hope to
dispel these misconceptions by creating high-quality Spanish-language reporting.
43
While there is a noticeable lack of bilingual reporting and content produced in
Spanish, especially compared to the quantity and caliber of news produced in English, the
reporters interviewed for this study have noticed a recent trend for newsrooms supporting
more bilingual Spanish-English reporting, the hiring of bilingual journalists, and the
acceptance of both Spanish and English existing in the same news story in the form of
interviews in both languages.
Should Spanish and English Be Mixed Together as “Spanglish”?
All reporters interviewed identified a need for more bilingual reporters, but
diverged from each other about what bilingual production content should look like. Only
one person interviewed currently produces a radio show where Spanish and English are
mixed together, in the form of real-time radio interpretation from English to Spanish. The
other 10 interviewees produce content in either Spanish or English, utilizing their
bilingual skills to conduct interviews and research that provide information and cultural
context for their stories. Looking to the future, it is worthwhile to note that there are
“Spanglish” social media accounts emerging, such as Remezcla, We Are Mitú, and
Dímelo, a project on Facebook and Snapchat run by the University of Southern California
Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. When asked for their professional
opinions about the emergence of “Spanglish” news, the young reporters who grew up in
the United States with immigrant parents seemed receptive to the possibility of
“Spanglish” news in the future. Those who grew up monolingually were more hesitant to
say they thought news in “Spanglish” would be successful, openly doubting there would
ever be a large enough audience of people sufficiently proficient in both English and
Spanish at the level to be able to consume news in both languages.
44
Limitations
The literature review for this study could be expanded in several ways: First, it
lacked a review of academic literature written in Spanish about Spanish-English bilingual
communication and bilingual journalism. The majority of research was done using
English language literature and English search terms, key words and databases. Second,
additional review of research on the social and political power of language could add
context to the work that journalists are attempting to do in this area, and finally, more
exploration of the issues faced by bilingual education could provide insights applicable to
bilingual journalism.
Six of the 11 reporters interviewed for this study work in radio. In the future, it
would be beneficial to collect more interviews with reporters who work in other
mediums, such as television and print.
Time and geographic location were also restrictive factors for this study.
Interviewing more journalists in-person in different cities would advance research on this
subject. There are many cities which would be beneficial to address, including Miami,
New York and Chicago which are known for their large Spanish-speaking populations
and Spanish language journalism.
Future Research
A content analysis examining Spanish and English-language news in the United
States would be beneficial to determine if more bilingual reporting is in fact occurring, in
both the reporting process and in publication. Further analysis would also be useful to see
if the mixing of languages into “Spanglish” is present in mainstream news sources. Part
of this research would need to analyze social media as much of the Spanglish news
45
content brought up in interviews during this study exist on social media sites such as
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Conclusion
As is clear from the broad spectrum of reporters who work in both English and
Spanish, there is no standard definition of what is or is not considered “bilingual
reporting.” These interviews did reveal that reporting and publishing in Spanish and
English are areas of growth and heightened interest in 2018, with the bilingual media
sector of the U.S. media industry being a space for innovation. How to successfully
communicate with the many different groups of people who comprise the Spanish-
speaking population in the U.S. is not easily defined. The reporters interviewed said their
audience members are interested in consuming news content in Spanish and English.
These reporters’ audiences include those who want to learn about a culture and language
that is not their own and others who appreciate feeling that their cultural identity is
affirmed when they read, watch or listen to stories that are about and for people like
them. The debate about the success and practicality of “Spanglish” news will continue as
the number of second generation Latinos in the U.S. continues to grow who understand
Spanish but are English dominant.
The analysis of bilingual Spanish-English media content and the interviews with
bilingual reporters demonstrate there is a clear need for the further development of U.S.
Spanish-English bilingual journalism. It would therefore be valuable for newsrooms and
other media organizations to invest time and money in hiring and training bilingual
Spanish-English reporters who can report and publish in both languages. The interviews
46
conducted for this study also revealed that, for bilingual and monolingual reporters alike,
seeking out culturally immersive experiences related to the communities on which one is
reporting will also benefit the cultural understanding and knowledge of the reporter.
In answering the research question, “How are bilingual journalists responding
linguistically and culturally to the needs of a growing bilingual Spanish-speaking
audience?” it is clear there is no set formula for bilingual Spanish-English reporting in the
United States. However, there are individuals who are investing their time and resources
into interviewing and researching in both Spanish and English, even though they are not
often afforded more time for this reporting and are not monetarily compensated for the
extra work it takes to report in more than one language. While the linguistic element of
bilingual reporting is important, all journalists interviewed stressed that the most essential
element of their bilingual work is biculturalism, understanding the cultural context
needed for reporting in Spanish and in English. This need for cultural understanding was
emphasized so strongly by the interviewees that they made it clear that, many times, it
does not matter which language is being used for the reporting process and publication as
long as the cultural nuance and correct tone is being used for the subject matter at hand.
While the growing English-dominant Latino population is prompting many of these
reporters to publish their work in English, experiments with “Spanglish” media outlets
are demonstrating that there are multiple ways that reporters are trying to reach the
English-dominant, Spanish-speaking population. Overall reporting bilingually in Spanish
and English in the American West centers on a professional desire to promote the
production of accurate news about underrepresented communities and to build bridges
between different cultural groups.
47
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Appendix A: General interview questions
1) What is your first language?
2) What is your education background, especially in regards to languages?
3) How have you developed both your Spanish and English language skills in a
way that allows you to report in both languages now?
4) What type of work do you do incorporating both Spanish and English? Do
you publish content in both English and Spanish, or only one language?
5) Explain your interview process.
6) Explain the situations in which translation is needed in your reporting. Do you
perform those translations yourself?
7) What advantages or challenges are unique to the medium in which you work,
as opposed to other mediums?
8) Does reporting in your less dominant language take more time than reporting
in your more dominant language? Explain.
9) What tools or technology do you use to aide you when reporting in Spanish
and English? This could include Google Translate, spell check, dictionaries,
Word Reference, or other language-related sites.
10) How do you conceive your role as a bilingual reporter?
11) How do you perceive and conceptualize your audience?
12) What is your main purpose for choosing to work bilingually, as opposed to in
one language?
13) How has your reporting process changed over the course of your time working
in both languages?
14) Has the type of audience feedback to your work in both languages changed
over the course of your career? How so?
15) How do you see the need for bilingual Spanish-English reporting evolving in
the near future? Will the need grow? Shrink? Stay the same? Why?
16) Are there any misconceptions about bilingual reporting that you would like to
clarify?
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Appendix B: Interview details
Participant Format of Interview Location
Duration of Interview
1
In-person
Cafe
35 minutes
2
In-person
Interviewee’s home 1 hour, 23 minutes
3
Phone
Researcher’s office 40 minutes
4
In-person
Cafe
53 minutes
5
In-person
Interviewee’s home 1 hour, 5 minutes
6
In-person
Interviewee’s home 1 hour, 14 minutes
7
In-person
Interviewee’s office 35 minutes
8
In-person
Cafe
30 minutes
9
In-person
Cafe
43 minutes
10
In-person
Interviewee’s office 43 minutes
11
In-person
Cafe
33 minutes
55
Appendix C: Annotated interview transcript
The following 10 pages are a scanned example copy of the handwritten First Cycle
coding performed for the analysis of one typed interview transcript. Coding labels on the
left-hand side of the page include categories like “education,” “experience,” “trends,”
“barrier,” and “cultural communication.” Redactions made in interview transcript to
protect interviewee privacy.
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
Appendix D: Screenshot of First Cycle coding organization
The screenshot below is a section of the Google Sheets document which I used to
organize the sentences and paragraphs I isolated from each interview transcript, grouping
all related interview excerpts by theme. Reading down vertically under each theme’s
name, I can see all interview answers related to that idea. The reporters interviewed are
listed horizontally, with Reporter 1 the top horizontal section, and Reporter 11 the last.
Redactions are made in the screenshot to maintain interviewee privacy.
#3
#2
#1
Coding themes (also known as labels) for the First Cycle of Saldaña Method coding.
These examples include (left to right) “trends,” “role,” “support,” and “time.” See the
Methodology section for a more extended explanation of the interview coding.
Interviewees are listed horizontally. Above the first colored bar are all the responses of
Reporter 1, then Reporter 2 is listed next, Reporter 3 below Reporter 2, etc.