Hispanic Media's Role Grows in Election year

Spanish-language networks and publications are taking on a more prominent role this election season, nabbing debates with major candidates and increasingly seeing their political coverage spin out into mainstream English-language media.

The attention highlights not only the growing influence of Hispanics, the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group, but also the power of the companies that provide much of their news. Take recent comments by Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) during a Sunday morning talk show with Spanish-language Univision Network anchor Jorge Ramos. Rep Sanchez told viewers her Republican opponent Van Tran, who fled Vietnam as a child, was anti-immigrant and anti-Hispanic. In previous years, those words might have gone unnoticed outside the Spanish-speaking community. This year they were picked up by a blogger, replayed on YouTube and seized upon by Republican Party leaders, demonstrating not just the increased influence of Spanish-language media but also how ever-more-powerful social media has made the information it provides easier to disseminate.