• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, April 24, 2004

The World According to Spanish or English Language News

According to a report entitled "Changing Channels and Crisscrossing Cultures: A Survey of Latinos on the News Media," issued by the Pew Hispanic Center, many more Latinos get at least some of their news in both English and Spanish than in just one language or the other. Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, said "How you get your news shapes how you see the world."

Some of the report's key findings include:

- Regardless of nativity, education, income, or language preferences, an overwhelming majority of Latinos-78 percent of the population-believes that the Spanish-language news media are very important to the economic and political development of the Hispanic population.

- 77 percent of the English audience follows news of the U.S. presidential election closely compared to 51 percent of the Spanish audience. In contrast, 72 percent of Spanish consumers follow news from their country of origins closely compared to only 31 percent of the English audience.

- Asked which media they get any news from on an average weekday, 88 percent of Latinos cited network television, 82 percent local television, 52 percent newspapers, 58 percent radio and 29 percent the Internet. With the exception of radio, which shows a much higher audience share, these findings generally mirror results found in the general population.

- The three language-preference groups split this audience, which includes broadcast and cable networks, evenly into thirds. The Spanish-only share of the audience for network television news is more competitive with the English-only share than with any other source of news.

- Among those who switch languages in their overall choice of news there is a small but notable preference for English local television broadcasts. The English-only audience for local television news is stronger than the other language categories among young adults, ages 18 to 29, a key demographic segment for advertising.

- The share of Latino newspaper readers that gets news only from publications in English is three times larger (62 percent) than the share reading Spanish-language papers (21 percent).

- Radio is exceptionally popular among Latinos with 58 percent of adults saying they get some news on average weekday from radio. This audience tilts to a preference for English (43 percent) compared to the share of radio listeners who get all their news in Spanish (34 percent) or from both languages (23 percent).

- Only 29 percent of the adult Hispanic population gets news on the Web and three-quarters of them get all their news off the Web in English. Only 20 percent of foreign born Latinos report getting news from the Internet compared to 44 percent of the native born.

You can find out more here.