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US Hispanics Prefer Their News in English
WASHINGTON (By Pablo Bachelet, Reuters) April 21, 2004 - Most Hispanics living in the United States use English-language media to stay informed despite a rich offering of Spanish alternatives, influencing their views on key issues like immigration, the presidential election and the Iraq war, a survey showed on Monday.
The preference for English among Hispanics is broad-based and includes native Spanish speakers who were born in Latin America, according to a study by the Pew Hispanic Center.
Only recent immigrants showed a clear preference for Spanish-language news sources, it said.
Forty-four percent of Hispanics obtain their news in both languages, 31 percent in English only and just 24 percent prefer only Spanish media sources.
Three-quarters of Hispanics get some of their news in English, compared with two-thirds that get some of their news in Spanish, the study found.
Many Hispanics will use both languages to stay informed but "over time immigrant Hispanics steadily migrate from Spanish to English media," the study said.
Spanish was the news media of choice for 47 percent of those who lived in the United States for 12 years or less. The number dropped to 31 percent for those in the country for 13 years or more.
Unlike other immigrant groups, Hispanics have multiple news offerings in their native language, from Univision Communications Inc. and NBC's Telemundo Communications Group Inc. to the La Opinion and El Nuevo Herald newspapers.
Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States, making up 13.5 percent of the population, but the study suggests that Spanish media faces a dwindling constituency.
"There is a clear indication here that the size of the market for Spanish language news is very much dependent on ongoing immigration flows," said Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center.
The survey, which had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points, also revealed that many Hispanics tended to switch back and forth between language news sources, preferring Spanish news to stay informed of events back home.
Hispanics that relied on English media tended to have less favorable views of undocumented immigrants and were more skeptical of Bush administration policies in Iraq, the report said.
Asked whether they thought the Bush administration had deliberately misled the public on the Iraq threat before the war, 60 percent of Hispanics who get their news in English agreed. By comparison, 51 percent of those relying on Spanish news thought the administration had misled the public.
English is even more dominant among potential Hispanic voters, of whom just 6 percent rely solely on Spanish media. |
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