Thursday, August 25, 2011

'Nothing But Caucasians'

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Posted By on Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 12:00 PM

In Ruben Navarrette's latest op-ed, he takes aim at NBC, even giving the broadcast company's acronym a new meaning: 'Nothing But Caucasians.'

Navarrette doesn't just pick on television executives, but he also throws in a nice jab at those darn nativists. The result are a few comments that reminded me of some of the lovely gems thrown around the Range from folks worried the Aztlan dream is beginning to take place.

Navarrette's piece here and a tidbit below:

And it is true even in the most heavily Latino city in the United States. According to the 2010 Census, Los Angeles is more than 48 percent Latino. And yet, at KNBC-TV, Channel 4, there are currently no Latino anchors. It's also the case that Latinos, including veteran on-air journalists, have been overrepresented in recent layoffs. Other stations in that market have long had at least one Latino anchor.

This rollback of diversity efforts reflects "a lack of commitment to the Latino community," wrote Michele Salcedo, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, in a letter to Craig Robinson, the new chief diversity officer for NBCUniversal. According to a statement by Salcedo on the organization's website, Robinson assured her "that it is not his goal to be without Hispanic anchors, and he and station executives are continuing to recruit Hispanic anchors and on-air talent." He also promised that the anchor lineup would look different in six months, according to Salcedo.

Just out of curiosity, what was Robinson's last job before becoming the diversity chief at NBCUniversal? Answer: He was the president and general manager at KNBC in Los Angeles, where he oversaw the creation of the same problem he now promises to fix.

Time to change the channel.

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