As Hearst-Argyle veteran Terry Mackin brushes up on his Spanish to take the stations president job over at Univision, one reader laments the notion of yet another white guy jumping to a big job at a Spanish-language media company.
"Once again, Spanish Language media keeps hiring non-hispanics to the top posts," writes Jesus Perez. "The names you hear at Telemundo and Univision are: Don Brown, John Lippman, Terry Mackin, Tim Schultz… Same goes for other cable companies: Chris Calcinari, Russell Wolf head ESPN Deportes…"
Mackin, for one, is no stranger to running broadcast properties that operate in a language other than English; prior to Hearst, he ran the 7-station Russian broadcaster StoryFirst. “I was about as skilled in cross-cultural communication as I was in nuclear science,” he told us about his first trip to Moscow.
Interesting issue. What’s more important for such a candidate, job experience or cultural experience?
