Albuquerque Journal

NAHJ Leadership Speaks with Albuquerque Journal EIC on Planned Newsroom Protocol Moving Forward

Washington, D.C., February 9, 2018 – On February 8th, 2018, approximately 11am EST, NAHJ leadership reached out to the Albuquerque Journal in regards to the editorial cartoon published with racist content.  In the afternoon, an apology was issued for upsetting readers and causing ‘inflamed emotions.’

Both the national board and the New Mexico chapter board continued to follow up and voice concern on identifying the real issue in the content being published.

This morning, NAHJ is able to report a meeting that occurred over the phone with Karen Moses, Editor-in-Chief of the Albuquerque Journal.  This critical and sincere conversation included the EIC taking responsibility for the grave error, identified the issue allowing this to happen and laying out the preventative measures the Journal will be putting in place moving forward.

“Our team and leadership works relentlessly to address issues regarding offensive and inaccurate portrayals of the Latino community,” commented Brandon Benavides, NAHJ President.  “It is with patience and persistence that leadership prevails.  It is not the first nor the last time we will be outraged with an issue, but it is another time when we have found success not only with our voice, but our process in putting action behind those words.”

When the responsibility as a journalist is overlooked or mishandled, it does a disservice to the local community and also impacts communities throughout the nation. NAHJ always will stand for accurate and fair representation of the Latino community and without question, look at the opportunities to establish relationships and open doors to work with newsrooms on holding leadership accountable and implementing solutions when problems arise.

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About NAHJ The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) is the largest organization of Latino journalists in the United States and dedicated to the recognition and professional advancement of Hispanics in the news industry. The mission of NAHJ is to increase the number of Latinos in the newsrooms and to work toward fair and accurate representation of Latinos in news media. Established in April 1984, NAHJ created a national voice and unified vision for all Hispanic journalists. NAHJ has approximately 2,200 members, including working journalists, journalism students, other media-related professionals and journalism educators. For more information please visit NAHJ.org or follow on Twitter @NAHJ.