African-American and Latino Views of Local Chicago TV News

African-Americans and Latinos make up about 60% of Chicago's population. This research looks at how these groups view local TV news coverage of their communities. A random telephone survey of 340 blacks and bilingual Latinos reveals that only 35% think their race or ethnic group is accurately portrayed on local TV news. They rate local news as "good" in general, but say it does only a "fair" job of covering their ethnic community. The most common complaint, brought up by more than half the blacks and nearly one-third of the Latinos is that TV news focuses on the bad things in their community and rarely reports the good. African-Americans are three times more likely than Latinos to say local TV news hurts race relations in the city, though the largest number said it makes no difference. The two groups watch about the same amount of local TV news, averaging 5.6 days a week. African-Americans are significantly more likely than Latinos to have a favorite anchor and show a strong preference for black anchors. While 80% of the Latinos surveyed also watch Spanish-language local TV news, they watch it less often than English-language stations. <p> Main Report<p> Methdology Appendix