|
Cultural
and Journalistic Differences between U.S. and Latin American
Newsrooms
By Liza
Gross
These remarks
were taken from a speech on Press Freedom in the 21st. Century
given by Liza Gross at a conference held by The Robert R.
McCormick Tribune Foundation on June 8 in Antigua, Guatemala
There is an enormous
range of size and resources in newspapers in Latin America.
Clarín of Argentina, with 700,000 circulation
daily and over a million on Sundays, is the largest Spanish
language daily in the world. Folha de Sao Paulo sells
650,000 daily and 1.2 million on Sundays. These papers, for
example, are much larger than many U.S. papers and belong
to corporate holdings much vaster than many U.S. newspaper
chains. These newsrooms have much more in common with U.S.
newsrooms from the standpoint of resources, the way they operate
and their approach to business than with newsrooms in their
own countries. But Latin America also has newspapers like
the multilingual El Regional, a Guatemalan weekly published
in Spanish and five Maya languages. Most of the staffers in
this paper barely completed primary schooling, and most, though
not all, are Maya.
Here are some similarities
and differences between Latin American and U.S. newsrooms.
There are also characteristics present in newsrooms in both
regions, but they manifest themselves in a different way.
Similarities:
1 - Newsroom managers
are not very good managers. Professional development planning
and staff evaluation skills are poor. In general, the skills
desirable in a reporter - aggressiveness and short term thinking,
for example - are not desirable in a manager. While it is
true that newsroom managers work under the pressure of the
daily deadline, it is also a fact that they devote very little
energy to employee career paths and are uncomfortable facing
or resolving human conflict.
2 -Most reporters
and editorial employees know nothing about other aspects of
a newspaper operation. They are ignorant about the needs of
production, or the pressures of press schedules. In fact,
they boast about this lack of knowledge as something to be
preferred.
3 - Most supervisors
have unrealistic expectations about the amount of stories
a reporter can be expected to handle competently on a daily
basis. The problem is more acute in Latin America than in
the United States. My colleague Ruth Merino, now of El
Nuevo Día in Puerto Rico, once taught at a paper
in Honduras where reporters were required to write ten stories
a day. This is not good for quality control and accuracy.
In the United States, however, I have heard frequent complaints
that reporters are forced to favor quantity over quality.
4 - American influence
regarding journalistic practices. Most of the instructors
running around in Latin America, such as myself, Carlos Castañeda
of El Nuevo Herald, or Ruth Merino, were trained in
the United States or work for U.S. media. And all of us brought
to Latin America an "American" journalistic frame of reference.
Many Latin Americans know quite a lot about the United States
and about journalistic practices in the United States, and
admire and seek to emulate many of these practices. It is
American journalists who know very little about Latin America,
unless they have worked as correspondents in the region .
Differences:
1- Most Latin American
countries have big heads and little bodies. A considerable
amount, when not all, of the social and political power of
the country is concentrated in the capital city. Reflecting
this pattern, the most influential and powerful newspapers
in Latin America will be found in the capital city and, in
some cases, in an important industrial or economic center,
like El Norte of Monterrey, in Mexico. In the United
States, journalists can develop an entire career in literally
dozens of cities throughout the country. Respected and prestigious
newspapers thrive all over, not only in Washington, D.C.
2- A consequence
of this media concentration is the different approach to staff
distribution in the newsroom. Newspapers in Latin America
emphasize metro staff, because in many instances this is equated
with covering not only the city but the federal government,
while the resources devoted to metro coverage in American
newspapers is extremely scanty when compared to other sections,
even in the Washington Post.
3 - The cultural
pages continue to be the plum job for many Latin American
journalists, who see themselves as the intellectual avant
garde and opinion shapers of the society they move in. Cultural
pages in the United States do not have the same status, and
are generally more entertainment oriented. The literary section
and even what in Latin America is referred to as the cultural
section is not only separate from farándula,
or entertainment, but it is also much more prestigious and
contains a substantial amount of commentary and criticism.
4 - Journalists
in Latin American newspapers are much more likely to have
worked in television and radio, as well as print. In the United
States, a news professional generally remains within the same
career path: print or broadcast. Not so in Latin America,
because job opportunities are fewer.
5 - Issues of gender
and race diversity, such as proportional representation or
affirmative action, are a totally foreign concept to Latin
American journalists.
6 - Although at
first blush it appears much more rigid, newsroom organization
is less vertical in Latin America than in the United States.
Even in large newspapers, reporters have more opportunities
than their American counterparts to offer input or influence
coverage or news selection, simply because newsroom roles
are less clearly defined than in the United States and this
situation creates many loopholes that work against an orderly
chain of command. The structure of Latin American newsrooms
is more hierarchical in theory, but in practice much more
porous, because there is less discipline when it comes to
respecting that hierarchy.
7- Journalism awards
in Latin America do not have a lot of credibility, like the
Pulitzer in the United States. Latin American journalists
aspire to become well known novelists, for example, much more
than they aspire to win a professional award. In fact, many
famous Latin American novelists, including Mario Vargas Llosa
and Gabriel García Márquez, were working members
of the press.
8 - News coverage
in the United States is thought with the reader in mind. Much
more than in Latin America, American journalists have a clear
picture of the news consumer in their heads when they select
or write a news story. In Latin American newspapers, for example,
it is very common to find interminable accounts of interminable
press conferences staged by government officials that offer
no valuable information whatsoever to the reader.
9 - Latin American
reporters are much more engaged as agents of social change,
while United States reporters tend to see themselves and act
as technocrats. Because of their active social and political
involvement, many journalists in Latin America were and continue
to be the targets of government repression, along with political
figures, union leaders, and grass roots organizers.
10 - Discrepancies
and conflict in newsrooms in the United States tend to center
around personality or competitive issues. In Latin America,
political ideology is much more likely to divide newsrooms.
11 - American journalists
are as a rule more individualistic. They are not likely to
help out colleagues by sharing resources and sources, particularly
in destination papers such as The New York Times,
the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune, where
competition is fierce. Latin American reporters routinely
share information with co-workers in the same newspaper, although
not with the competition. Solidarity among newspeople in Latin
America can also manifest itself in heroic gestures. For example,
when owner Alfonso Dau began to interfere with the editorial
content of Siglo XXI in Guadalajara, Mexico, and tampered
with pension contributions, the newsroom, about 100 reporters,
resigned en masse.
12 - Latin American
journalists are better hustlers than their U.S. counterparts,
because they do not have the benefit of elaborate press kits
and releases. On the other hand, the information Latin Americans
handle tends to be more incomplete and riddled with errors.
However, for their part, American journalists rarely do a
thorough scanning of documentation they can obtain much more
easily than their Latin American colleagues.
Similar characteristics
with a difference
1 - Both newsrooms
reflect the larger social context in which they operate. More
cannot be asked of journalists than is asked of society at
large. Social polarization in Latin America is more pronounced
than in the United States and that social polarization is
reflected in newspapers and within newsrooms. There are wealthy
newspapers and poor newspapers. The first ones tend to be
staffed by middle class individuals with a college education.
The second ones by lesser educated, less affluent individuals.
And within staffers in the newsroom there is also a wide socioeconomic
spectrum represented. In the United States, with its large
middle class base, and where journalism is basically an upper
middle class, white collar and liberal occupation, newsrooms
offer a much more uniform representation of a social class.
I cannot emphasize enough the polarization of Latin American
newsrooms. Rank and file see owners as the Other, not simply
as a business executive who happens to make a higher salary,
as a publisher would be viewed in the United States.
2- Pressure from
outside sources. Overt outside pressure in Latin America used
to come from the government. That constraint still exists
nowadays, although in a much subtler form. Governments undermine
the freedom of operation of the press through tariffs, for
example, or by withholding advertising, as was the case of
El Nuevo Dia in Puerto Rico. For their part, many American
papers are part of large, public corporations, and their newsrooms
are facing the increasing need to satisfy shareholders and
to be extremely sensitive to the bottom line, even at the
expense of quality of coverage. Outside pressure from advertisers
to influence coverage is a challenge common to Latin America
and the United States.
3 - Self censorship.
Historically, censorship in Latin America has come from the
government or the armed forces, including the police. Fear
for personal safety resulted in self-censorship among newspeople
in Latin America. Drug dealers have had the same effect. In
the United States, self-censorship has been motivated not
by a desire to save one’s life, but by the hope to remain
a member of an exclusive club. In the book On Bended Knee,
author Mark Hertsgaard shows how the U.S. media under Ronald
Reagan became a virtual mouthpiece of the government.
4 - The glass ceiling
is a reality for female professionals in newsrooms in Latin
America and in the United States. However, women are much
more likely to achieve positions with decision making power
in newsrooms in the United States than in Latin America.
5 - Both Latin
American and American journalists use humor, but in different
ways. Latin Americans have an acutely refined sense of irony
and satire, mostly centered around politics or intellectual
matters The piece by Mexican Lorenzo Meyer on the magical
realism of Mexican elections is a classic example, as is some
of the writing in Página 12 of Argentina. The
closest equivalent in the United States would be The Onion
and Spy magazine. But outside the above-mentioned
topics, Latin Americans are dreadfully dull. Americans are
much better at taking droll looks at everyday life, in the
style of Dave Barry of The Miami Herald. Barry is an
obvious example, but this type of humor frequently creeps
into regular news stories, and makes reading the paper a much
more enjoyable exercise.
Here are some suggestions
that could lead to a better understanding and improved synergy
between the American and Latin American newspeople. .
1 - Sending American
reporters to work in Latin American newsrooms. Why is it always
Latin Americans who have to come to the United States? Why
do always Spanish speaking reporters have to learn ESPAÑOL?
Why not have ESPAÑOL speaking reporters learn Spanish?
2 - For any exchange
program, please consider the option of the U.S. Spanish language
press, particularly those newspapers owned by big media corporations,
such as Exito. The working language is Spanish, but
Exito is held to the same journalistic standards as
the Chicago Tribune, and its newsroom is organized as an "American"
newsroom, although staffed by Latinos.
3 - Think of researching
areas that can debunk myths that are common currency. For
example, the reasons for corruption in Latin America. A study
by the Freedom Forum states that "since salaries are low,
many journalists accept bribes as a way of making ends meet."
That’s just plain silly. Following that logic, poorly paid
journalists in the United States should also be corrupt. In
fact, many journalists in the United States are paid extremely
low wages. Just pick up any Editor & Publisher
magazine and go through the help wanted section to verify
this fact. But low wages do not make them corrupt. There is
a study that notes that countries ruled by the Napoleonic
Code tend to have more inbred corruption than other countries,
because the code favors the wealthy. So is corruption among
journalists in Latin America due to economic hardship, or
due to other factors?.
4 - Ponder how
the topics that not for profit foundations find attractive
drive coverage and professional focus in Latin America. Journalists
are much more likely to cover narcothemes for the glamor of
it and the visibility it will bring them rather than, let’s
say, women’s issues, which will not open as many professional
doors and will not offer the same exposure.
Born in the United
States and raised in Argentina, Liza Gross
is publisher of the weekly Exito in Chicago. She has
given workshops and seminars in 24 newsrooms in Mexico, Costa
Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Bolivia and Argentina.
(August
6, 1999)
|
