If Dallas Morning News Editor Bob Mong needed his Spanish-language offshoot Al Dia to help him anticipate and cover the big pro-immigration rallies in Dallas, that's because he's essentially segregated the two newspapers: one Hispanic and Spanish-speaking staff for Al Dia, one essentially non-Hispanic and non-Spanish speaking staff for The Dallas Morning News.
Mong claims that the Dallas Morning News staff is 6.1 percent Hispanic. I don't believe it. After I was laid off in October 2004, me and my fellow Hispanic colleagues estimated that the staff was less than 3 percent Hispanic -- in a city of Dallas that was 40 percent Hispanic and a country of Dallas that was 33 percent Hispanic. I don't believe that the percentage of Hispanics would have more than doubled to 6.1 percent in 29 months.
And why did he need Al Dia's Spanish speakers to tell him that the pro-immigration rallies would be huge? Most of the organizers spoke English as well as he does.
What's next? A black newspaper to help him cover the black community? A Jewish newspaper to help him cover the Jewish community? Assuming that he really needed Al Dia to tell him that hundreds of thousands of marchers were coming to downtown, there would be a good reason for that: Al Dia is where all the Hispanics are.