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June 30, 2005
Amidst sweeping changes in America’s media landscape, ethnic media are emerging as the giant hidden in plain sight. The first-ever comprehensive survey of ethnic American adults on their media usage reveals that ethnic media reach 51 million ethnic Americans — almost a quarter of all American adults. Of these media consumers, 29 million ethnic American adults, or 13 percent of all adult Americans, not only use ethnic media regularly but prefer ethnic media to their mainstream media counterparts.
The study was commissioned by New California Media (NCM) in partnership with the Center for American Progress and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF), and administered by Bendixen & Associates. The poll surveyed 1,850 Hispanic, African American, Asian American, Arab American and Native American adults, representing 64 million ethnic and racial minorities overall. The interviews were conducted in 10 languages
Video & Transcript
• John Podesta: Video
• Mark Lloyd: Video
• Sandy Close: Video
• Sergio Bendixen: Video
• Karen McGill Lawson: Video
• Q&A Session: Video
• Presentation: Slides
• Transcript: Full Text
Note: All video provided in QuickTime (MPEG-4) format.
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| Panelists |
 Sergio Bendixen is the CEO of Bendixen & Associates, and is recognized as the preeminent expert in Hispanic public opinion research in the United States and Latin America. Bendixen graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1970 with a degree in chemical engineering. Following his studies at Notre Dame, he was employed by the Atlantic Richfield Corporation in Corpus Christi, Texas. However, a fascination with politics and a desire to understand how to shape public policy drew Bendixen into the political arena, opinion research, and the media. Bendixen has provided primary research and advice for clients both on a national and international level and has directed hundreds of demographic and attitudinal survey projects for statewide and congressional political races, major corporations, and not-for-profit organizations. Bendixen specializes in gathering information about Latino public opinion. The Columbia Journalism Review identifies Bendixen as the pioneer of multilingual polling, with surveys conducted in as many as 12 different languages. He spent 14 years working as a national television political analyst for four chief Spanish-language television networks: S.I.N. (1985-86), Univision (1987-92), CNN en Espanol (1993) and Telemundo (1994-98). He has also provided commentary for countless radio shows and print stories. Bendixen’s polls and writings have been featured in Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and The Miami Herald. Bendixen also spent eight years in Washington, D.C., as Chief of Staff and Press Secretary to U.S. Representative William Lehman allowed him to develop a broad understanding of political and public policy issues. A native of Peru, Sergio Bendixen is the first and only Hispanic to have ever run a national campaign for U.S. President and has served as a senior consultant to two other presidential campaigns in both Costa Rica and Venezuela. |
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 Sandy Close is Executive Director of New California Media. After receiving a BA from the University of California-Berkeley in 1964, Sandy moved to Hong Kong, where she worked as the China editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review. Upon her return to the U.S., she founded The Flatlands newspaper, a raw voice of the inner city communities of Oakland, CA. In 1974, she became Executive Director of the Bay Area Institute/Pacific News Service, helping to develop it into one of the most diverse sources of literary voices and analytical ideas in the U.S. news media. In 1991 she founded YO! (Youth Outlook), a collaboration of writers and young people, and in 1996 she co-founded “The Beat Within,” a weekly newsletter of writing and art by incarcerated youth. In 1996 she also founded New California Media, a network of over 150 ethnic news organizations collaborating to produce a weekly TV show, an awards program, and an inter-ethnic media exchange and Web site. In 1995, Close received a MacArthur Foundation “genius award” for her work in communications. In 1997 a film she co-produced — Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brian — won the Academy Award for Best Documentary. |
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 Karen McGill Lawson is Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) and Deputy Director for Educational Operations for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. Ms. Lawson oversees all of the Leadership Conference Education Fund, endeavors including its public education campaigns on important civil rights public policy issues; its work in improving inter-group relations; and its assistance in building the capacity of the civil rights coalition through projects such as the digital divide initiative and Civil Rights Summer. Ms. Lawson has co-written many books and is the contributing editor of Voting Rights in America: Continuing the Quest for Full Participation, a collection of essays on voting rights including an essay by Bill Clinton; as well as a contributing editor of the Civil Rights Monitor, a quarterly publication that tracks the civil rights activities of the federal government. She has served as an advisor to Family Communications Inc.’s Racism Project, Different and the Same, the Media Center for Children’s Willoughby’s Wonders Project, and the Philadelphia Campaign to Promote Inter-group Cooperation. Prior to joining the Leadership Conference, she served as the education monitor for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. During her tenure at the Commission, Ms. Lawson wrote With All Deliberate Speed 1954 – ??, a review of school desegregation in the U.S., and Statement on the Fiscal Year 1983 Education Budget, and co-authored several other publications including Fulfilling the Letter and Spirit of the Law: Desegregation of the Nation’s Public Schools, and Civil Rights, A National Interest Not a Special Interest. Ms. Lawson holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Pennsylvania State University and Notre Dame University. |
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 Mark Lloyd is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress focusing on communications policy issues, including universal service, advanced telecommunications deployment, media concentration and diversity. From the fall of 2002 until the summer of 2004, Mr. Lloyd was a Martin Luther King, Jr. visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught communications policy and wrote and conducted research on the relationship between communications policy and strong democratic communities. He also served as the Executive Director of the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan project he co-founded in 1997 to bring civil rights principles and advocacy to the communications policy debate. Previously, Mr. Lloyd worked as general counsel to the Benton Foundation and as a communications attorney at Dow, Lohnes & Albertson in Washington, D.C. representing both commercial and non-commercial companies. He also has nearly 20 years of experience as a print and broadcast journalist, including work as a reporter and producer at NBC and CNN, and is the recipient of several awards including an Emmy and a Cine Golden Eagle. He has served on the boards of directors of dozens of national and local organizations, including the Independent Television Service, OMB Watch, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund. He has also served as a consultant to the Clinton White House, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute and the Smithsonian Institution. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center. |
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