EthnicMajority

(Infozine) Hispanic newspapers overall lost circulation in 2010, but not nearly to the extent of the English-language press. (English-language dailies saw a 5% decline for the six-month period from March to September 2010 compared with the same period the year before.) And daily Hispanic papers grew circulation by 1.9%. The financial picture seems to have improved as well in the last year.

Spanish-language television had an even more positive year. Univision's audience continued to grow and now competes with—-and in some timeslots outpaces—-audiences for ABC, CBS and NBC. Indeed, between Univision and Telemundo (and all of their stations), the 2010-2011 season is projected to bring in $1.5 billion in ad revenue.

Hispanic radio and magazines also showed growth. The number of Spanish-language radio stations grew 8% for the most recent year we have data (from 1,224 in 2008 to 1,323 in 2009), and magazine ad spending increased in 2010. There are several ways to measure ad spending and revenue, and looking across all of these calculations, PEJ puts Spanish-language magazine ad revenue growth at about 5% in 2010.

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(NewsBusters) If you thought media coverage of the Aug. 28 “Restoring Honor” rally hosted in Washington D.C. by Fox News host Glenn Beck seemed like just another attack on conservatives, you’re not alone. As noted by the Daily Caller’s Jim Treacher, much of the coverage had a common thread: describing the crowd as “overwhelmingly white.”

While the term was certainly used in coverage of Beck’s rally, it’s not a new label. “Overwhelmingly white” is a prime example of the media’s groupthink on Beck, Tea Parties, and the conservative movement in general. Virtually every major “mainstream” media outlet has used the phrase in just the past year to describe conservative events.

But even as the media criticize Tea Party and other conservative rallies for an apparent lack of diversity, they struggle to bring minority voices into their own operations.

All three broadcast networks have described the Tea Parties as “overwhelmingly white.” So have CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the Agence France Presse, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, National Journal and US News & World Report. Many of those organizations are the very ones the news industry discusses as having failed to make diversity goals for staff.

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(OpEd News) On July 13th, citizens from Chicago piled into a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) public hearing on the Comcast-NBC Universal merger to weigh in on the merger and give public comments that would become part of the FCC’s legal record for and against the merger. The legal record would be referred to when making a decision on whether to allow Comcast to merge with NBC or not.

The hearing was held at Thorne Auditorium on Northwestern University’s campus in Chicago. It was possibly the only public hearing the FCC will be holding on this merger in the country.

Each person in attendance had an opportunity to sign up and give two minutes of public testimony. About ninety people signed up. Most were from Chicago but some were from California and other parts of the country.

Those giving public testimony voiced their opinion on a media consolidation move that would put production and distribution into the hands of one company. This would make it a vertical merger. The merger would also mean that Comcast would control one in every five television viewing hours and could potentially push its competitors in the industry to raise prices on cable subscribers by charging them more for NBC content.

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