• Reuters, Thursday, May 20, 2010 11:55 PM

Fox News, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, said the new site FoxNews Latino (www.FoxNewsLatino.com) will provide original news and features focused exclusively on the Latino community, reports Reuters. The U.S. Latino population is one of the fastest growing, accounting for around 15.4% of the population in 2008, up from 12.5% in 2000, according to Pew Research. As that population grows, marketers are spending more of their advertising dollars with Hispanic media outlets.

"About a third of the country is going to be of Latino heritage by 2050, and we thought it was time to launch a site with more of a focus," said Michael Clemente, Fox News' senior vice president of news editorial. He adds, however, that a news TV channel focused on the Latino community is unlikely.

But the growing numbers of Hispanics are having an effect on politics, as well as media. "The immigrant influx in California has politically realigned the state," said, James Gimpel, a government professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. "There's no question that the very, very large volume of international migrants in Southern California counties has altered the political complexion of the state to favor the Democratic Party."

At the same time, the percentage of the San Bernardino County electorate voting Republican in presidential elections declined from nearly 60% in 1980 to less than 46% in 2008, noted American Renaissance. The same trend is occurring across the nation in counties with large populations where most immigrants settle.

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