Was First Latina Governor Ignored?

The folks over at Fox News, not Fox News Latino-which is the same thing only different, like another hat or the servants’ entrance-have come to the defense of a Latina. It’s a convoluted premise, rolled-up in the guise of a straight forward idea, and I’ll try to unfurl it for you.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez was sworn-in on New Year’s Day as the first Latina governor in the country, a historic event no doubt.

But the event garnered little or no mention in the national (legacy) press. The Washington Post’s and “big three” broadcasters of the world paid it little heed. And even when they did mention the ceremony they didn’t make it a point to mention the Governor’s ethnicity. FoxNews.com itself is guilty of the ethnic omission.

The New York Times didn’t mention it at all.

Fox News Latino reported it this way:

“The media is not paying sufficient attention to the number of Hispanic conservatives who are elected to statewide offices and to Congress, especially in the western states,” said Mike Gonzalez, vice president of communication at the Heritage Foundation and a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal.

“It goes against the narrative” of the “liberal media,” he said, adding that the news industry has long classified Hispanics as “another liberal group.””

I remember Carlos Guerra used to quip: “Journalists can’t agree on where to have lunch, you think they’re conspiring on a bias (or narrative)?”

Again FNL:

The AP later updated its Jan.1 inauguration day wire mentioning her as the first Latina governor. A search of the New York Times website yielded no stories on Martinez’s historic inauguration, and CNN mentioned her status as the nation’s “first Hispanic female governor” in a broadcast on Jan. 2.

Here’s the convolution, as I see it: It’s long been a point of the conservative star to say that we should all consider ourselves American, regardless of race or ethnicity; no hyphens, no asides. Why, then, does it bother the de facto conservative news outlet that the ethnicity of a newly elected Governor got no ink or air time in the national media?

The Fox News piece mentioned the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation as an example of the “liberal media bias.” Sotomayor is a liberal Latina, therefore she got major coverage, as opposed to Martinez who’s a conservative and thereby did not. But isn’t that like comparing the barn to the dairy farm?

Sotomayor is a Justice of the US Supreme Court. She was covered because that’s an extremely big deal.  Martinez is the new Governor of one of 50 states.

It is, though, a major accomplishment and it forges a huge inroad into national politics to be the first of anything. I would have liked to have seen more props going her way. She’s got some major creds:

The 51-year-old former district attorney, from middle class roots in El Paso, graduated near the top of her high school class before attending the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of Oklahoma College of Law. In 1996, Martinez was elected district attorney of the state’s 3rd Judicial District, which covers heavily-Democratic Doña Ana County. Touting herself as a no-nonsense prosecutor during the 2010 gubernatorial election, Martinez defeated the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, Diane Denish.

It’s hard to see Fox’s point, unless it comes with a mea cupla. They hardly looked Martinez’ way on inaugural day; it could just as easily have been said that they passed her up because she’s female and Latina.

And in the end, you can’t call someone on not noting ethnicity when you say they shouldn’t do it to begin with.

Do you think the national press ignored Martinez because she’s a conservative?