KVEA Shakeup Fuels Debate at Latino Stations

For months, KVEA Channel 52 staffers have privately grumbled about the “miserable” representation of Mexicans or Mexican-Americans in key decision-making positions at Los Angeles’ No. 2 Spanish-language TV station and its New York-based parent network.

But it took the departure of three ranking Latino staffers from KVEA’s news department on Tuesday to make the debate public and give KVEA the distinction of becoming the second local Spanish-language station to come under fire in recent weeks for its staffing policies regarding Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.

Last month, 80 of 150 employees at KMEX Channel 34--KVEA’s chief rival--signed an obliquely worded petition that was widely interpreted by staffers and Latino community leaders as a warning that viewers of Mexican descent are losing senior management positions within the station and its parent network, Univision.

“KVEA’s viewership is 90% Mexican and Mexican-American, but this station gives nothing back to the community at the leadership level,” said Bob Navarro, a veteran reporter and news writer who for the past 10 months had been news director at KVEA. Until his firing Tuesday, he said, he had been the last Mexican-American in senior station management after the resignation in February of Frank Cruz, former vice president and general manager.

As KMEX and Univision did with the allegations against them, management at KVEA and the parent Telemundo network denied Navarro’s charges, citing the station’s steady ratings gains as the best evidence of its popularity.

“We produce a service that responds to and serves the community,” said Stephen J. Levin, who replaced Cruz as vice president and general manager. “The community is overwhelmingly Mexican and Mexican-American. We would not be serving that community if we did not similarly (represent it) in our news and entertainment.”

Levin said KVEA still features several Mexican and Mexican-American reporters, including Alberto Aguilar, who anchors the station’s half-hour local newscast at 6 p.m.

Levin declined to characterize the nature of Navarro’s departure. The other two employees, Ray Diaz, managing editor, and Mabel Solares, an assignment editor, resigned, a station spokesman said.

Levin criticized Navarro for over-emphasizing local news while failing to report several major breaking international news stories, such as the pro-democracy protests in China and recent changes in Mexican law allowing American citizens to own land in Mexico.

Other news staffers privately said another factor contributing to Navarro’s ouster was a recent decline in KVEA’s ratings for its 6 p.m. newscast. According to Arbitron Ratings Co., “Vea Noticias” went from a 1.9 rating, or a record 44% of the Latino audience, during the February sweeps to a 1.2 rating, or 33% audience share, during the May sweeps.

Navarro challenged both these claims, arguing that Levin had gone to great lengths to tell his staff that he agreed with Navarro’s local news emphasis. Despite his preferances, Navarro said he led many newscasts with breaking international news, including recent political developments Panama and Mexico City.

The newsman, who previously worked at KNBC Channel 4 and KCBS Channel 2, added that the recent drop in “Vea Noticias’ ” ratings were due to the normal spring viewing drop-off, weaker lead-in shows and the new competition in April from KWHY Channel 22, the third Spanish-language station to broadcast in the Los Angeles market.

The allegations of declining Mexican or Mexican-American representation in senior management have caught the attention of Latino community leaders.

“It (Navarro’s departure) is beyond disappointment,” Antonia Hernandez, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a national Latino civil rights organization, said Thursday.

“It’s an affront to our community that they feel they can bring people in who do not reflect the community. It sends a signal of total disregard.”

“Personnel issues aside, we are obviously concerned with this trend,” said Armando Duron, president of the Los Angeles-based National Hispanic Media Coalition. “It is really ominous. We have been so involved in (pushing for higher Latino employment) in English-language TV that we’ve held off on Spanish-language TV. But it may well be time for us to look into the issue seriously.”

Like its rival, Univision--which is principally owned by Hallmark Cards Inc.--none of Telemundo’s board of directors is Latino, a network official in New York said.

Other network officials acknowledged that two of Telemundo’s top eight managers are Latino--neither of whom is Mexican or Mexican-American. At Univision, upper level management is all Latino, though only one of these executives is Mexican-American.

Latino numbers at Telemundo improve when it comes to the general managers of the six TV stations it owns. Two of them are Cuban or Cuban-American and two are Mexican-American, network officials said.

KVEA’s Levin insisted that Telemundo’s commitment to its Latino viewers must be viewed as a long-term investment.

“Telemundo’s truest goal is to create an environment in which Hispanics are trained for more management positions,” he said.

At the same, Levin added, he cannot allow questions of national origin to dominate his thinking when it comes to staffing decisions.

“The last thing you think about is where the person comes from,” he said. “The important point is, are they experienced professionals who can put together a newscast that meets the station’s philosophy?”

Levin said that Roberto Soto, a Cuban-American who replaced Navarro, and Alfredo Fernandez, a Spaniard who replaces Diaz as executive producer, meet this standard.

“If you do it any other way,” he added, “it’s reverse racism.”