Identifiers

I belong to an advisory committee to my local NBC affiliate, which advises the station how it's covering and appealing to the Hispanic market. A couple of days back the station reported on a situation where a man abducted a child at gun point and tried to kill him. The man was later apprehended and the child was found alive. In their reporting of the story, they identified the man as a "22-year-old Mexican man."

Well this identifier made some folks mad. Some people began emailing the news station asking if identifying the man as a Mexican was really necessary. The station asked us how they should have handled it. Most of the committee, who are seasoned professionals in different industries and from different Hispanic backgrounds, agreed that the station could have said "a 22-year-old Mexican national or a 22-year-old man of Mexican descent."

In my opinion...it was relevant in this particular story to identify the man as a Mexican because there was a wide spread search for him since he abducted this child. Nevertheless, in any other context it would still be okay to have said a "Mexican man" because had they simply said a Hispanic man, the first question in my mind would be "what kind of Hispanic man...A Puerto Rican, a Cuban, a Dominican?"

Anglos are inarguably the majority here in the U.S. Therefore, had the story only said "A 22-year-old man," most people would automatically think it was a white man. In the same manner, they would identify a black.

Either direction that the station would have taken, I think that for the most part people want to complain about something. They want to point the finger at someone and say "you're wrong."

Basically, the news station didn't offend anyone. Those people took offense to it.

I'm Puerto Rican and personally unless they say "wetback or nigger," I'm not offended at all by news stations using modifiers. We live in a melting pot society, so these identifiers help me understand what or who the news is referring to.