In this election, the media’s Latino coverage came up short
*I’m going to keep publishing articles about the misrepresentation and miscount of the 2016 Latino vote because I can’t let the “Trump got 30 percent of the Latino vote” story go unanswered. Mainstream media is normalizing that number and it’ll be used to frame Latino politics – it shouldn’t be. VL
By Esther Cepeda, Washington Post Writer’s Group (4 minute read) 
My recent, unscientific survey of Latino journalists across the country found a near-unanimous belief that the media failed Hispanics in the run-up to the presidential election.
Their reasons for criticizing the mainstream media (as opposed to Latino-focused English-language media or Spanish-language media) were varied — from cable news networks elevating a Hispanic Donald Trump apologist who warned against taco trucks on every corner if Hillary Clinton was elected, to largely ignoring anti-Latino slams like Trump’s “bad hombres” comment and Mike Pence’s “that Mexican thing.”
For any number of reasons, frustrations with how Hispanic stories were framed or simply overlooked made Latinos upset before the polls closed. And it infuriated them after President-elect Trump was named the victor.
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“Our media failed us, our leaders failed us, and Hillary Clinton failed us. But mostly, we failed ourselves,” wrote Alfredo Estrada, publisher of Latino magazine, on Facebook the day after the election.
Esther Cepeda’s email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com. Follow her on Twitter, @estherjcepeda.
[Photo b Dennis Lynch/Flickr]
