Personal pleas from the battlefront. Graphic photos of war dead. Detailed descriptions of military weaponry. All this and more makes up an ethnic news coverage approach to the war with Iraq that often differs from its mainstream counterparts.
While the mainstream news organizations present polished press briefings, visually compelling high-tech warfare, and sand-swept military battle scenes, the ethnic news operations zero in very specifically on their audiences’ needs. You can see their varied approaches by watching or reading news disseminated by different ethnic outlets.
For the New York-based Spanish-language newspaper el diario/La Prensa, coverage means publishing photos of deaths in Iraq to convey the reality of what war entails. It also means the editor writes a column explaining the newspaper’s decision to do so, noting its desire to provide true images of the war — from all angles — and its consequences.
For the Vietnamese press in California, it means publishing the details of military equipment because of the many Vietnamese living in the area who fought in the Vietnam War.
For Native Americans, it means highlighting the impact of the death of the first female American Indian to die in the Iraq War.
For a website formed by Black columnists to offer a Black perspective on the war, it may mean addressing the relationship between African Americans and Arabs, or how serving in the Iraq War may not help someone with a Black name get a job in peace time.
For Spanish-language news operations like Univision, it means getting up close and personal: beaming back broadcasts of Hispanic soldiers speaking directly to their families.
Alexandra Navarro Clifton, Palm Beach Post staff writer, captures that image in her story about Univision’s coverage that appeared on Friday, April 11, 2003.
In her article, she offers mainstream newspaper readers a window on the news seen and heard by the Hispanic viewers. She also profiles Jorge Ramos, viewed by Hispanic viewers as the Tom Brokaw/Peter Jennings/Dan Rather of Spanish-language networks, who went to Kuwait to cover the war.
“Whereas the English speaker in the Palm Beach area is watching CNN, your neighbor who speaks Spanish would be watching Univision. And the two would be watching two different wars,” she says when I ask her about her the differences she sees.
Navarro Clifton points out that the Los Angeles-based Univision and the Miami-based Telemundo provide a variety of perspectives on the war: the impact on immigration; Spain’s role in the coalition; the Hispanic non-citizen soldiers; and whether the war in Iraq prompted Cuban leader Fidel Castro to jail Cuban dissidents.
Navarro Clifton: “Whereas the English speaker in the Palm Beach area is watching CNN, your neighbor who speaks Spanish would be watching Univision. And the two would be watching two different wars.”“I think it’s a very unfiltered view” of the war offered by the Spanish-language television news, she adds. She wonders if it’s because those who want to put their own spin on the war domestically focus on the English-speaking newscasts. And while Hispanics see the U.S. as their country, they also retain an interest in the views of their country of origin, she notes. That may make them less fearful of expressing their views on the war, which differ from the mainstream, according to polling by the Pew Hispanic Center.
“The question of whether this war is really necessary is being asked more often,” Navarro Clifton says. “Whereas on the English side, the question might be viewed as unpatriotic.”
Navarro Clifton, a Cuban-American born and raised in Miami, got the idea for writing about the Spanish networks news coverage when she began flipping through all the news channels she could find for war news. For her, it seemed natural to check out Univision and Telemundo because of her familiarity with the Hispanic community’s viewing habits.
Katherine Nguyen, a staff writer for the Orange County Register, offers similar insights into the Vietnamese news war coverage.
Her story, “Little Saigon a big source of news,” details the many and varied outlets providing news about the Iraq War for U.S.-based Vietnamese people. She provides perspective on the interest, and impact on a readership that remembers all too well its own war and the U.S. role in it.
Anh Do, an Orange County Register columnist who focuses on the Asian American community and also works for Nguoi Viet Daily News, notes that the Nguoi Viet Daily News even sponsored a town hall meeting so the community could debate and share insight about the war.
These alternative news sources offer consumers a variety of ways to see, hear and read about the war. Mainstream journalists who monitor such coverage will find a fresh field of news to cultivate and use for their own news operations.
