‘Portada’: A News Magazine With a Latino Flavor

Relaxed in his plush Santa Monica office, Angel Martinez matter-of-factly tells his interviewer how designing a woman’s aerobics sneaker transformed him into a multimillionaire and Reebok International into the nation’s leading tennis shoemaker.

“I was never told I couldn’t do something,” said Martinez, Reebok’s 34-year-old corporate vice president of new-business development who left Cuba and parents behind at an early age. “With talent and work, one can succeed.”

If the slick image and vintage American success yarn Martinez spins in Cuban-accented Spanish seem reminiscent of CBS-TV’s “West 57th” or ABC-TV’s “20/20,” well, that’s intentional. He was appearing on the first edition of “Portada” (“Front Page”), which debuted Monday at 10 p.m. on KMEX-TV Channel 34 in Los Angeles and nine other Univision owned-and-operated stations, affiliated cable systems and repeater stations nationwide. The news magazine show represents the network’s latest effort to widen its lead as the nation’s leading broadcaster of news in Spanish.

Anchored by the earnest Teresa Rodriguez, the weekly half-hour show dedicates its first 10 minutes to in-depth investigations, followed with upbeat features highlighting Latino success stories. The show’s final minutes end with “En un Minuto” (“In a Minute”), a “60 Minutes”-style face-off between Sergio Munoz, executive editor of Los Angeles’ La Opinion newspaper, and Carlos Alberto Montaner, executive editor of El Nuevo Herald, the Miami Herald’s new Spanish-language spin-off.

The show’s harder-news segment focused on the dangers of cocaine addiction and pregnancy of Silvia Torres, a mother who gave birth to two sons in the midst of her addiction to crack cocaine. The “En un Minuto” segment followed with Montaner and Munoz on the same side of the controversial proposed 4.2-mile concrete-lined trench on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Both agreed the trench would do nothing to stem the flow of drugs or illegal immigrants across the border. Munoz, however, takes a jab at Alan C. Nelson, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, for using a project initially designed as a water-drainage project “to preserve his post in the new Administration.”

For Guillermo Martinez, the former Miami Herald senior editor who took over Univision’s news department more than a year ago, “Portada” is more than a new show. It’s his answer to critics who have doubted Univision’s commitment to news programming.

“I told people a year ago that I would not have joined Univision just to see the demise of their news organization,” said Martinez, who doubles as network vice president.

“We saw our correspondents (for the national newscast) go from four to 13 full-timers. And I am now positioning myself to create a new, late-night newscast.” This as-of-yet untitled show to be modeled after ABC’s “Nightline,” he said, could air as early this year.

“Portada” isn’t the only Univision program to claim direct or indirect parentage to American-style, English-language programs.

Starting April 17 at 4:30 p.m. on KMEX, “El Juez (“The Judge”)--a daily Spanish-language version of the afternoon English-language legal drama of the same name. The new show features Rene Enriquez of “Hill Street Blues” as the judge. “Cristina,” an hour Spanish-language version of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” featuring Cristina Saraleguias host, comes on a half-hour later.

Spanish-language TV isn’t just borrowing ideas, it’s also attracting Latino journalists, such as Univision’s Martinez and Rodriguez, who have made careers in mainstream, English-language media.

After starting as a business reporter for WPBT-TV, a PBS affiliate in Miami, and a stint as general-assignment reporter for WTBJ-TV, then a CBS affiliate, Rodriguez said she gave up offers of higher salary reporting jobs with NBC and CBS and for a lower salary career at Univision.

“I was very flattered when I was working with American stations, but I just didn’t get the same sense of accomplishment,” she said. “Maybe, when you are smaller, you have a little more liberty to go that extra mile.”

That’s what Rodriguez hopes to accomplish with “Portada” by soliciting viewers for story ideas and telephone calls for their opinions on upcoming shows about abortion and immigration attorneys who defraud Latino immigrants.

“You can’t change the world, you can’t improve it overnight with a program,” she added. “But if we make people aware of what’s out there, help them become better citizens, we are doing something.”