Reuters' Recursive Racism

I'm guessing this reporter is not getting a lot of the A-list stories. Yesterday her headline read, "Americans Know Little About Latin America." That was a real shocker, with her article including damning evidence such as:

A recent Zogby International poll showed that the large majority of Americans did not know the names of the presidents of Brazil and Mexico, the two biggest economies in the region.

Only 10 percent of the 7,362 adults interviewed were familiar with Brazil's second term president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and just 20 percent knew of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Uh yeah, Americans don't know the names of Latin American politicians. Like they're special. Americans don't know the name of the Prime Minister of the UK, the President of China, or their own Senator or Representative. One American, heavily involved in politics, didn't know that Canada didn't have a President at all.

So there's no real story here, except that Reuters thought it was a story, and that they used their go-to Latina reporter to write it up. For example, 5 days earlier, Adriana Garcia wrote, "Fewer Mexicans seen sending money home from U.S." 11 days earlier, the same reporter wrote "Stereotypes dominate U.S. views of Latinos," where she reported on a book by a Mexican-American studies professor on Latin-American stereotypes in the media.

It looks to me like any research on media stereotypes should start at Reuters, who apparently believe that stories about Latino issues can only be written by Latinos, and vice versa. Stories about racial stereotyping are written via a process of racial stereotyping. That's the beginning of recursive racism.