Los Angeles, Oct 16 (EFE).- The Los Angeles City Council honored a group of Latino journalists this Tuesday as part of the celebrations of Hispanic Heritage Month, in a city where almost half of the population (49% ) belongs to this community.
“The work of these journalists and reporters has been vital in giving a voice to the community and helping to make Los Angeles a better place every day for all of us,” said Councilman Curren Price, who led the event.
Among those honored were Colombian Ana Milena Varón, Agencia EFE correspondent for more than a decade in this city; the Peruvian Roberto Ticona, news director of the Estrella TV channel; the Ecuadorian reporter Viviana Sarrade; the Mexican journalist Jorge Macías and the Mexican reporter Erika Flores.
For Flores, a correspondent for Telemundo’s National News, this recognition “represents support” from the Los Angeles City Council for the Hispanic community in a city where Latino representation barely occupies a third of the 15 seats on the Council.
Price represents District 9, which has the highest percentage of eligible Latino voters at almost 65%. That’s more than double the percentage of eligible African American voters, which is just 24%.
For the councilor, Hispanic journalists and media are a decisive factor that drives constituent participation. “There is a need to speak in the language of our residents and in that, Hispanic journalists are a very important factor,” Price told EFE.
For Imelda Interiano, founder of Desde Aqui TV, an internet channel dedicated to Central Americans with more than fifteen years of history, initiatives in Spanish in the United States currently face great economic and competition challenges with content creators on social networks. .
“There is a lot of misinformation and it is something that now we have to deal with, in addition to informing we have to deal with having to verify and make them believe us,” he told EFE.
Colombian journalist Rafael Buitrago, who directed the editorial section of the newspaper La Opinión for more than a decade, the oldest Hispanic newspaper in the United States, was also honored.
