Pew Hispanic/Internet discovers Earth is round.

For at least a decade, I've been saying three key things about the U.S. Latino population and its use of the internet, based on all research that was available at the time and my first hand experience launching the first major Latino forum on America Online.

Hispanics who are most likely to go on-line are

1. Born in the United States
   
2. Bilingual or English Dominiant
   
3. High school or college educated.
   

Despite this, Wall Street in all its wisdom during the go-go days of the late 1990s invested heavily in hugely hyped start-ups focused on Latinos who were:

1. Foreign-born
   
2. and Spanish-dominant.
   

I have to believe this is because the leadership in Wall Street is about the least diverse of any profession on the planet. You're about as likely to find a Latino in a position of power on the Street as in the Daughters of the Confederacy. And if you do, the Latinos are foreign-born elites unfamiliar with the US born Latino population.

Overall, we are talking about folks who's only interaction with US Latinos are with the chambermaids of five-star hotels.

I'll never forget talking to a venture capitalist with Piper Jaffrey who felt so in touch with "la communidad" because his wife had recently bought a Luis Miguel cd. Geez, my brother once bought me a Iggy Pop cd; doesn't mean I'm more in touch with Anglos.

No wonder this guys fell head over heals with Spanish-language sites despite all I was saying.

Well, last Thursday March 14, 2007, the Pew Hispanic/Pew Internet released a study that empiracally confirmed:

Hispanics who are most likely to go on-line are:

1. Born in the United States
   
2. Bilingual or English dominant
   
3. High school or college educated
   

I don't feel the least bit vindicated; these clueless Anglos wasted gobs of money that could have been better spent creating resources that truly serve the community.

Armed with this new data, I sure the Street will come up with something even more idiotic.

Download the full Pew Hispanic/Pew Internet report on PDF format

Conversation with Mercedes de Uriarte, University of Texas at Austin professor of journalism

To say Mercedes de Uriarte is passionate about journalism and the coverage of Latinos and Latin America is like saying the Pope cares about Catholicism. It's an understatement.

Over breaksfast in Santa Fe, she and I spoke about a mutual passion to resolve major issues challenging the news industry, especially as they impact coverage of US Latinos and Latin America.

It was early on a Friday morning almost pre-dawn on March 16, 2007.

Our conversation wasn't planned, but a product of happenstance. She was attending a Annie E. Casey funded conference on perceptions of the border region as was I.

I happened to be early for a breakfast buffet; so was she. I was half way through my huevos revueltos con salsa, tocino, cafe con chocolate y jugo de torrenja when she happened upon my table.

In her 17 years at University of Texas at Austin and prior years working in the US media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, she's had a front row seat on internal issues challenging better coverage Of Hispanics.

According to her, she wrote the first article in AdAge issues outlining the media potential of the growing Latino population way back in the 1970s - "Invisible Market" in March 1979.

I have to say Dr. de Uriarte fears the recent trends in coverage that have failed the readership and that point to a future where the media no longer serve as a watchdog of government.

I have similar fears. In fact, I concur, but I am more concerned about challenges to the underlying business model that currently supports the existing traditional news media. It's a tough call, but I see anything that undermines the financial stability of media as a wedge to undermine the integrity of the relationship with the audience.

That's what scares me. I still got through my huevos revueltos and I still am optimistic that we can resolve these issues.

My conversation with Mercedes just proved more eye-opening than my cafe con chocolate.

News flash: Hispanics are Americans; the border is part of the United States and so are its people.

At a Santa Fe, New Mexico, conference focused on changing perceptions about the border region Thursday March 15, 2007, a group of Latino activists, journalists and others outlined what they see as a critical problem in public perception about a swath of the United States where most U.S. Hispanics live.

Participants were unanimous in thinking that the the mainstream media has fallen short in covering Latino issues and portraying the Latino experience in humanizing ways. Indeed, little has changed over the past 25 years.

A portion of the group at the "Beyond the Wall: Reframing 25 Years of Stereotypes" funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation agreed that to change perceptions they must more effectively use traditional public relations methods to make journalists more aware of humanizing ways to cover border issues.

The group drilled into the issue, agreeing that at the heart of the issue is how the United States perceives who is an American.

One referred to a oft-quoted saying on multi-generational Chicanos - "We didn't cross the border the border crossed us."

Also, one participant urged the use of Web 2.0 tools to circumvent much of the negative current in the blogosphere regarding the border.

Latinos Online

Since 1996, I've been saying one tune; in the ultra segment-able world of the Internet, it's not enough to simply put content in Spanish or content about immigration in English on-line.

US Latinos in the United States do use mainstream tools on the Internet such as Yahoo, Google, AOL and Microsoft just as much as other Americans.

Hello!

So the questions for media are twofold:

What makes Latinos different than other consumers?

What makes targeting messages to Latinos different than other consumers?