The National Association of Hispanic Journalists, A Platform to promote alternative lifestyles?- Clarification

 August 23, 2007

In the August issue of the CotoBuzz Journal we asked the question:  Is The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) - a Platform to Promote Alternative Lifestyles?  In that article, we included a quote we attributed to NAHJ president Rafael Olmeda.  Responding to the article, Mr Olmeda pointed out that he had previously complained to us that we took his quote out of context, presented it as an answer to a question, and misspelled his name.  The paragraph in question is shown below

“I have had a substantive email exchange with NAHJ president Rafael Olmeda, who has confirmed his endorsement of the GLBT caucus.  I asked him  if he would be opposed to the formation of a Christian values caucus to present a balanced view.  Olmeda indicated in part: “We believe that Latino journalists are diverse in many ways: religiously, ideologically, racially. Some of our members are gay and lesbian. We deplore any effort to discriminate against them on the basis of religion, creed, political affiliation or on the basis of whether or not they're straight” – The CotoBuzz Journal, August 6, 2007

The facts are that the (Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender) caucus got prominent billing before, during and after the NAHJ 2007 Conference held in San Jose, California.  

The facts are that days before the 2007 NAHJ election, a student describing herself as a senior at Lehman College in New York and  the president of the NAHJ Lehman College Student Chapter sent out an email soliciting support and stating in part:  “…many in the NAHJ Board of Directors are know me and support my candidacy. This includes NAHJ president Rafael Olmeda, Region 2 Director Joanna Hernandez, and Parity Project Director Kevin Olivas. Executive Director Ivan Roman and Veronica Villafañe also know me personally over these past three years that I have been involved with NAHJ”. 

The facts are that Mr. Olmeda indicated to the Journal that he did not endorse the student-candidate and that  she either mistakenly believed Mr. Olmeda had  endorsed her or she accidentally made it seem like he had done so.

The facts are that we in the article published in the August 9, 2007 issue of the CotoBuzz Journal titled NAHJ’s 2007 Student Representative Election Incident, we make a case that  “ If a senior majoring in journalism sends out self-serving misleading information, consciously or not, the act reflects bad on the university’s school of journalism, as well as on the NAHJ and sets a terrible precedent if not addressed properly, properly and decidedly” – CotoBuzz Journal, August 9, 2007

The facts are that in response to the NAHJ’s 2007 Student Representative Election Incident,  piece, Mr. Olmeda posted the following in the CotoBlogzz (August 9, 2007):  “Aisha al-Muslim is an asset to the NAHJ board of directors and I look forward to serving with her over the coming year”

So there you have it.  We apologize for misspelling Mr. Olmeda’s name.  Trust Mr. Olmeda and the CotoBuzz Journal readers now have the necessary context to properly interpret citations we have previously attributed to Mr. Olmeda.

Given that the NAHJ leadership has for the most part ignored our request for comment on previously published NAHJ stories, all we say is “Beware of what you do not say, as it is more important than what you do say!”

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