In 11 cities, NBC and Telemundo operate as duopolies — meaning both stations cover the same market, often out of the same space, one for an English-speaking audience and the other for Spanish speakers. Bilingual reporters who can file stories for both stations are an asset.
“Bilingual reporting is the only real reporting I know how to do,” said reporter Miguel Martinez-Valle, who works for the Philadelphia duopoly NBC10 and Telemundo62. “The way that I’ve always processed information has been in English and Spanish. Being able to tell the stories, the news, in both languages, for me, just feels like a part of your everyday life.”
NBCU Academy embedded with the NBC10 and Telemundo62 newsroom, as Martinez-Valle and reporter Isabel Sánchez were sent into the field to report stories in both English and Spanish. In the mini documentary above, and in their comments below, see how they use their bilingual skills to interview the community and communicate across the newsroom.
How does a typical day start?
Sánchez: A regular morning for us starts with our editorial meeting at 9:15 a.m. Everybody’s in that meeting — we have the news director, vice president of news, we have producers, editors, photographers — to discuss exactly what we’re going to do for the day. We go through every single story. We go through what Telemundo is going to do, we go through what NBC is going to do, what angles are we looking for, and what stories are important for the day.
Every single morning, I wake up early to review what’s going on, and if I find any ideas that are relevant, I write them down, send them in via email, and then we discuss those in the meeting. Those are stories that people are living through or things you find on social media, or maybe a source called you and told you, “Hey, this is going on today.”
What does the collaboration look like between Telemundo and NBC?
Martinez-Valle: For me, because I know I’m going to be on both [NBC and Telemundo newscasts throughout the day covering the same story], it has to be a pretty big story. You check in with whoever is producing the shows that you’re in. I was in the noon newscast today for Telemundo, so I had to check in with producer Julia Coltters and say, “Hey, we’re gonna get here at this time,” and set expectations, and then focus on the four o’clock news for NBC and then the six o’clock for Telemundo. It’s a lot of texts, a lot of phone calls and a lot of email chains.
Elizabeth Flores, NBC10 and Telemundo62 vice president of news: Without the teamwork, it’s not possible. You just can’t do it alone. Ana Hernández, Telemundo62’s news director, has to be in lockstep with Matt Dennis, the news director of NBC10. We’ve got to make sure that we’re getting all the elements that we need for our story, and that we’re able to cover the story in the right way.
It’s all about being able to have that communication cohesively with other producers, and just to make sure that we’re all on the same page. Without it, it’s as if we would be working in two separate newsrooms, and it wouldn’t work.
Why do you think bilingual reporting is so important?
Martinez-Valle: I was born in Mexico and I grew up in Michigan, and if we wanted to find out what was happening, we would have to watch the news in English. My parents didn’t know that much English when we first moved here. And so for us, we either had the national Spanish shows, or the local English, and I would have to translate.
So now that I’m in the news, I feel like I’m doing that, just on a larger scale. You’re letting people know what’s happening in their communities in their language. Being able to connect with both communities in English and in Spanish at the same time I think is really neat.
Sánchez: Bilingual journalism, for me, it’s a superpower. It’s the ability to connect with communities that are so different yet so similar, and having the ability in your hands to tell their stories in their language every single day, what a privilege.
Growing up in Venezuela, seeing amazing journalists literally risking their lives to tell the stories of what was going on in my country was one of the most significant parts of my childhood. I remember being 12 years old and seeing what was going on in the streets of Caracas, people dying, and the journalists were there. They’re committed to telling the stories that matter the most, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do.
