KMEX’s Reports on the Rampage

I am writing this letter to you dismayed, hurt and outraged by the way your reporters Tracy Wilkinson and John Lee dismissed our coverage of the riots in “Ethnic Media Serve as Lifeline Amid Chaos” (May 3).

In one single paragraph, Wilkinson and Lee destroyed the reputation of a group of dedicated KMEX journalists who went well beyond the call of duty to inform our community of the disturbances in L.A.

Judging from the piece published in your paper, my guess is that none of your reporters bothered to check on the air our efforts to cover the riot. It angers me to wonder what were your reporters watching while my six reporters were risking their lives bringing to our audience the best coverage we have ever offered.

It should be pretty obvious for any journalist working in L.A. that a comparison between Spanish and English language media would show tremendous financial differences. Yes, we cannot do what the big networks and independent stations do. Yet, in spite of our limited resources we did an excellent job in covering the crisis.

Allow me to present you with this data so that you can judge our performance: On April 29, we interrupted programming 22 times with news updates that lasted from five minutes to 20 minutes each and aired five complete newscasts; on April 30, we interrupted programming 25 times and had seven special newscasts; on May 1, we interrupted programming 22 times and had seven special newscasts; on May 2, there were 12 news breaks and one local network special; on May 3 we had two special newscasts. None of these facts were printed in your story!

In another paragraph, your reporters praise, and rightly so, an editorial from La Opinion calling for calm, peace and order. Good for them! The problem is that apparently we do not deserve the same treatment from your reporters. For some strange reason, they chose not to mention that we did three editorials saying the same thing! Neither did they write about the 15 community leaders, elected officials and expert analysts who appeared in our news programs; is this fair and objective coverage?

I just want you to know how disappointed we feel by this unforgivable failure to report accurately from our most important local newspaper.

KMEX lost a lot of revenue cutting programming and commercial time; the effort was monumental given our limited financial and human resources. Yet, we felt proud of it because we thought that our audience deserved the extra effort.

SERGIO MUNOZ, Executive News Director, KMEX Channel 34