Manufacturing the Gang: Mexican American Youth Gangs on Local Television News (Contributions to the Study of Mass Media & Communications Book 63)

and Félix Gutiérrez of the Freedom Forum also offered valuable comments and suggestions. Susan Craig and the Trinity College library staff helped track down several sources. Financial support was provided by a Graduate Opportunity Grant from the University of Texas at Austin as well as summer research grants and a Moody Minority Doctoral Fellowship. I have also been x Acknowledgments assisted by a grant from the Radio Television News Directors Foundation and a fellowship from the Poynter Institute. I am grateful to the journalists who shared their time and thoughts with me. They will no doubt see the shortcomings of this work since they know firsthand the complexity and richness that is found in local television news. I also want to thank the police officers, community leaders, and young people who gave me their time and insights. This work would not have been possible without their assistance. I also want to thank my parents. I feel particularly blessed by their encouragement, for as long as I can remember, to express myself in whichever way I chose. Thanks also go to Eric Levy and Lynn Zelem, my editor and production editor, respectively, at Greenwood, for their advice, patience, and help. Finally, while I had much help writing this book I should say that any errors are mine and mine alone.

Coverage of Mexican-American youth gangs has been a staple of local television news in the United States for decades, and its form and content have come to embody many journalistic cliches: the rising tide of violence, the spread of drug addiction, the alienated minority youth. But as this bold new study argues, these stories contain gross exaggerations that lead to the reinforcement of stereotypes about Mexican-American young people and the Mexican-American community in general. Indeed, the police and community leaders greatly influence the content of this coverage by deciding what information to make available to the news media, while reporters select certain sources and ignore others, thus slanting the story even further.

As author Raul Tovares makes clear, the true story of Mexican-American youth is far more complex than local news would have its viewers believe. Cultural values, organizational structures, and economic systems all contribute to the production of this journalism, which itself has a direct and real impact on the lives of Mexican-American teenagers. Unlike other books on the subject of Mexican-American youth gangs, Tovares's work critiques the very assumptions on which ideas about such gangs are based, and brings much-needed attention to a timely and often misunderstood subject.

Tovares (communication, Trinity College) examines the historical origins of the Mexican American youth gangs, and details the ways by which the news media (especially local tv news), the police, and community leaders have constructed a myth around them. Distortions in television reporting are highlighted, and their implications for racial politics considered. Suggestions for unbiased reporting are provided. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR