Ignores The Holiest Day of the Year for Most Latinos
By Elvis Jocol Lara
I’ve see enough. On Easter Sunday, “Fusion”, ABC and Univision’s joint venture network, the supposed voice of bicultural Latinos, ran 20 STRAIGHT stories on social media either promoting the use or the legalization of marijuana. The posts read as follow (with my translation in italics):
• “HAPPY 420!!!!! Ever wonder how this mythical holiday even came to be? Check out this explainer from chief cannabis correspondent.” – That’s right, because on Easter Sunday, you should be most concerned about the origins of 4/20. Oh! And did we mention we have a Chief Cannabis Correspondent?
• “Remember to tune in today at noon for 420/360 on Fusion!” – Who cares about family on this most holy of days? Join us for wall to wall coverage on marijuana! How’s that for a contrived story CNN?!
• “In time for 4/20, a handy guide to potent weed strains” – If you’re not getting as high as possible, you’re not doing it right. Let’s ignore the fact that marijuana is still illegal in most of the 50 states, and being caught with it could ruin your life, but you have to try this strain that may or may not fry your brain!
That’s right, if you’re concerned by the lack of coverage on what to look for in your next weed purchase by CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, Fusion has you covered!
Look, I’m not here to proclaim the evil of Marijuana. What I mean to tell here is there should be a fair legalization and taxation process as with other substances. We just have to be patient with it like the community of CBD oil 1000mg users who waited long for it to be distributed legally. In fact, there is serious merit to medicinal use, legalization and taxation for marijuana that must be seriously discussed (see this week’s El Mundo editorial for the paper’s official stance on this matter).
However, Fusion has completely jumped the shark on this issue and reduced my generation of Latinos to one solely obsessed by the use and legalization of marijuana and this has to stop. As Latino’s first well funded foray into English language media, the network, fairly or unfarily, represents who we are to the rest of the nation.
However, I can honestly state that Fusion does not speak for me and I’m confident it does not speak for millions of others like me who could not care less about this issue given the multitude of important issues that impact our communities on a daily basis.
Kudos are in order to the network for their continued coverage of the crisis in Venezuela when mainstream media outlets largely ignored it, but that proved to be only a brief intermission between their marijuana coverage.
Immigration reform, educational attainment, race relations, entertainment and the economy, which should be automatic topics for the network, receive little to no attention. This network has the opportunity to change things for the better for our generation but instead it has been a complete disservice for Latinos.
I understand the stories noted above ran on 4/20 but their marijuana coverage has been consistent since the network’s inception.
As was noted, April 20th was also Easter Sunday, one of the most important days for many Latinos across the world. Spanish language masses across the country were packed not just with old timers but with young Latinos as well. How about telling us how the first Latino Pope ever handled his first Easter mass? You don’t exactly have to be a religious zealot to be interested in that.
How about ANYTHING in addition to the wall to wall drug coverage? They make CNN’s coverage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 look insufficient by comparison. Univision and ABC should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen.
Fusion has the potential to set the stage for what a bicultural Latino network will be in the future and I hope they take that responsibility seriously. If the feedback on social media is any indication (which has been lukwarm at best), eventually the power of the pocket will wield its power as eyeballs begin to turn away and advertisers follow soon after.
And perhap the biggest tragedy of all will be that that this might be Latinos last best chance at such an outlet; after all, outlets like NBCLatino have come and gone.
Fusion has no excuse for failure as it has the financial backing of juggernauts ABC and Univision and the “disque” market expertise of Univision.
The message a failure could potentially send to others willing to try their hand at the bicultural Latino is that it is not a viable market. If that ends up happening, English language media will take its puff, pass us along and then continue to ignore us.
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Elvis Jocol Lara is Founder and President of Casa Guatemala and an experienced Marketing professional who has worked with some of the world’s leading brands. A child of Guatemalan immigrants, he was born in Boston and raised in Waltham, MA. Follow him on Twitter @ElChapin.
