The Best Ethnic Reporter in DC (!)

What is an ethnic reporter? I just read this on Washington City Paper, via La Bloguera:

“Best of D.C. 2009” Staff Pick: Best Ethnic Reporter

Best: Kojo Nnamdi

Second-best: Patricia Guadalupe

Everything Kojo Nnamdi says comes in that smoooth patois he brought here from the land of his birth, Guyana. He’s the best there is. But the most obviously ethnic reporter in our market is WTOP’s Patricia Guadalupe. She’s a general assignment reporter, so there’s no uniformity to her beat. And the voice she uses to deliver the news about real estate tax assessments or tryouts for the Nationals’ Running Presidents or whatever is nondescript. Which is what you’d expect from somebody born here in D.C., as Guadalupe’s WTOP bio says she was. But everything gets bizarrely descript at the end of those pieces, when she breaks into a hyper-Hispanic accent for her signoff—“Pah-TREEES-SEEE-yahh GWAAAH-dah-LOOO-pay!…WTOP!”—that comes out of nowhere and seems as caricatured as anything the Frito Bandito ever uttered. To be fair, Guadalupe didn’t invent this attention-calling gimmick. Whenever I hear it, I think about the routine comedian Brian Regan did years ago about how clichéd it had become for broadcasters of Latin heritage to have exaggerated IDs. Regan wondered why reporters of other heritages don’t exploit their roots. Guadalupe’s signoff, like Regan’s routine, makes me giggle every time I hear it, and, given my lineage, think how cool it would be if Chris Matthews flaunted a big brogue at the end of his show each night.
—Dave McKenna

No kidding. Is it really happening? So now anyone who is not white American is considered Ethnic?

This is for Dave McKenna:

What is an “ethnic reporter”? Perhaps is someone who doesn’t look or act white American? You know, out of the ridiculous picks of the “Best of D.C. 2009” list, this has to be the most annoying. I wonder, if journalists are this ignorant, what’s up out there among regular folks?

For instance, when you wrote “a hyper-Hispanic accent” I am not sure what you meant by that, because Hispanics are from Spain and among the 36 countries of Latin America, there are different accents for each of them either in Spanish or the local Native American languages, let alone those regional ways of speaking Castillian.

About Patricia Guadalupe or Kojo Nnamdi, never heard of them before -maybe I have, but never paid attention until now actually. I will definetely check them out, and I guess that is the contribution of McKenna article?