Research by the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C., shows that an increasing number of Hispanics are switching between English and Spanish to get their news. Even fluent English speakers rely on Spanish-language media to get news from Latin America and about Hispanic communities in the United States, and half of Latinos who were born abroad get at least some news in English.

The survey results show that exposure to English-language news media influences the views of Latinos born abroad on a wide range of topics. For example, compared to immigrants who get their news in Spanish, they have less favorable views of undocumented immigrants, are more skeptical of Bush administration policies in Iraq and are less trusting of news organizations. “How you get your news shapes how you see the world,” says Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center. “For foreign-born Latinos that simple verity has powerful and complex consequences.”

Latinos have strong views about the roles the news media play in society. The majority of Latinos, including those who only get news in English, see the Spanish-language media as playing an important role in the economic and political development of the Hispanic population. And Latinos are concerned that the English-language media contribute to a negative image of Latinos among English-speaking Americans.

The findings are based on a telephone survey of 1,316 Latinos in a nationally representative sample. Interviews were conducted from February 11 to March 11, 2004. Results have a margin of error of +/- 3.42 percent. The survey was conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research organization, which is a project of the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication.

TV provides the news

Asked which media they get any news from on an average weekday, 88 percent of Latinos cited network television, 82 percent local television, 52 percent newspapers, 58 percent radio and 29 percent the Internet. With the exception of radio, which shows a much higher audience share, these findings generally mirror results found in the general population.

Language preference seems to depend on the medium in question. With network television, the three language-preference groups (Spanish-only, English-only, and those who switch between languages) slice this audience, which includes broadcast and cable networks, evenly into thirds. The Spanish-only share of the audience for network television news is more competitive with the English-only share than with any other source of news.

For local television news, among those who switch languages in their overall choice of news, there is a small but notable preference for English local television broadcasts. Combined with a somewhat lower viewership in the Spanish category, this produces a larger share of this audience that only watches English news programming (40 percent) compared to the Spanish-only audience (29 percent) and the language switchers (31 percent). The English-only audience for local television news is stronger than the other language categories among young adults (ages 18 to 29).

English enjoys a distinct advantage in the print news audience. The share of Latino newspaper readers getting news only from publications in English is nearly three times larger (62 percent) than the share reading Spanish-language papers (21 percent). Latinos who get all their news in English give higher ratings to newspapers for being the most informative medium (16 percent) compared to Latinos who get all their news in Spanish (3 percent) and for giving greater service to Hispanics (15 percent vs. 1 percent).

Radio is extremely popular among Latinos: 58 percent of adults say they get some news on an average weekday from radio. This audience shows a preference for English (43 percent) compared to the share of radio listeners who get all their news in Spanish (34 percent) or from both languages (23 percent). But within the radio audience the share of the foreign-born (56 percent) that gets all its news in Spanish is larger than for any other medium.

Only 29 percent of the adult Hispanic population gets news on the Web and three-quarters of them get all their news off the Web in English. Just 20 percent of foreign-born Latinos report getting news from the Internet, compared to 44 percent of the native-born.

Voters prefer English

English-language media is the dominant source of news in one key segment of the Hispanic population: likely voters in U.S. election. Fifty-three percent of Latino voters get all their news in English and 40 percent of them get news from media in both languages. Only 6 percent of likely voters get all their news in Spanish.

A larger number of Latinos getting news in Spanish (70 percent) or in both languages (68 percent) said they were aware that President Bush had recently announced a proposal on immigration, compared to those in the English category (53 percent). Of those who said they were aware of the proposal, the foreign-born were more supportive (36 percent) than the native-born (20 percent).

Bush won higher approval ratings (59 percent) from foreign-born Latinos than the native-born (42 percent). While all segments say they would favor Sen. John Kerry over Bush, preferences on the race among likely Latino voters (Bush 39 percent vs. Kerry 52 percent) show that Kerry is running weaker than Democratic candidates in several recent presidential elections, who have captured about two-thirds of the Latino vote.

Native-born Latinos are more skeptical of Bush administration policies in Iraq than the foreign-born. For example, 59 percent of the native-born think the administration deliberately misled the public about the threat in Iraq before the war began, compared to 44 percent of the foreign-born. News media choices accentuate this difference: those who get their news only in Spanish are the least skeptical segment of the population.

Interest in major topics in the news varies considerably by language group, reflecting the mix of persons born in the United States and abroad in each group. For example, 77 percent of the English audience follows news of the U.S. presidential election closely, compared to 51 percent of the Spanish audience. In contrast, 72 percent of Spanish consumers follow news from their country of origin closely, compared to only 31 percent of the English audience.