Fox News Latino has only been around for a few months, but it’s already become a hotbed of controversy. It’s less than a year old, and was created to target Latino audiences with news from both the U.S. and Central and South America. Yet while the it does the uncomfortable dance of trying to court more Latino viewers, that effort likely gets swallowed by the larger network’s venomous approach to important issues like the DREAM Act and border violence. Now, Media Matters is pushing for the network to make up its mind.

Fox News is the most-watched cable news channel in the country. In 2009-2010 the network surpassed CNN and MSNBC’s weekly viewership. A study released this week by Public Policy Polling found that PBS is the most trusted news outlet the U.S., followed by Fox News. (Fox News is the second-most trusted network, but also the most distrusted one, with 42 percent trusting it and 46 percent not trusting it.)

Last month they ran a story saying Spanish Actress Penélope Cruz was going to give birth to an “anchor baby,” but after some uproar from a group of Latino conservatives Fox News retracted the entire story, and today there is no sign of the story on their site.

Back when the network launched its Latino website, its leadership seemed optimistic.

“The launch of Fox News Latino creates an unprecedented opportunity to expand our reach by engaging the fastest growing minority audience and providing a unique platform for compelling and original content focused on the Latino community and the American dream,” said Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente in a statement.

But of course, very little of that optimism has shown through to any coverage that’s “fair and balanced,” to go along with the network’s slogan.

They provide airtime to hosts and pundits who are anti-immigration or “anti-amnesty,” as they would call it — views that could be in conflict with the same audience they’re trying to reach with Fox News Latino.

“I don’t think there’ll be conflict,” Clemente told Reuters in an interview. “We will do what we always do on the news side which is to be very fair and balanced on all sides of the issue in our reporting.”

Another study found Fox News viewers are much more likely than others to believe false information about U.S. politics.

Take the DREAM Act, for instance. Media Matters found that from Nov. 23 through Dec. 1, 2010, Fox gave DREAM Act opponents more than 40 minutes of airtime versus about seven minutes for supporters. Host Sean Hannity called the DREAM Act a “free college education” and “basically amnesty.” Doug McKelway of Special Report called it a “free ride to college. But in fact the DREAM Act would’ve never provided any “free” grants to students.

And sometimes the hosts just go for knee-jerking acts. Bill O’Reilly dedicated several segments of prime time television to discrediting Nicky Diaz, former California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s undocumented housekeeper. O’Reilley went as far as asking U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano what she was going do about “the highest profile illegal alien” in the country, and made her promise that she would look in to Diaz’s case.

But Fox News Latino told Diaz’s story in a completely different light. For starters, Diaz was an “undocumented housekeeper” and “mystery maid” ‘who “Whitman abruptly fired,” not an “illegal alien,” as she was identified on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor. Fox News Latino also painted Diaz in a good light when Whitman settled with her for unpaid wages. “Whitman settles with housekeeper for chump change” the headline read.

This week Media Matters looked at the dichotomy of the coverage on both Fox News and Fox News Latino when they reported news that the family of a Mexican teenager who was shot and killed by a border patrol agent for allegedly throwing rocks at them is filing a wrongful death suit.

Media Matters’ Simon Maloy points out that Fox News Latino reported news of the lawsuit in a “straightforward manner,” but on Fox News the tone was much more incendiary:

Yesterday on Fox News’ Happening Now, anchor Jon Scott conducted an interview with the slain teenager’s family’s attorney. In introducing the combative segment, Scott referred to undocumented immigrants simply as “illegals” — a dehumanizing shorthand frequently encountered on the network — and aired several grainy video clips of rocks being thrown at the U.S./Mexico border. Remember, the family attorney denies the claim that the boy threw rocks and that the video of the shooting corroborates this. But Fox News aired other video clips of other people throwing rocks at the border.

It seems like the “conflict” Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said wouldn’t occur has manifested itself. Their solution to avoid conflict may just be that Fox News Latino not cover all the news Fox News covers; current top news stories on Fox News Latino includes stories about childhood obesity, pop singers being arrested, physic octopus and political prisoners in Cuba, none of which are present on Fox News. The big lesson here? You just can’t have it both ways.

WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS NSFW IMAGES

By Special Correspondent Arturo R. García

At least she can sorta carry a tune.

After two viewings, that’s about all I can glean from Kirsten Dunst’s cover of “Turning Japanese,” which premiered late last year as part of an exhibition by Takashi Murakami at London’s Tate Museum. According to Anime News Network, the video is a collaboration between Murakami and director McG, which makes this – to give everyone the benefit of the doubt – somewhat puzzling as an interpretation of anything close to fandom.

Dunst, to her credit, has a history with the medium: she voiced the title character in the English-language adaptation of Kiki’s Delivery Service, and has expressed an affection for Sailor Moon – which explains the costume – in past interviews. But instead of presenting her as a Majokko (“Magical girl” or “Witch Girl”), MCG here threw her under the same bus Scarlett Johansson rode in on for Lost In Translation.

Start with the musical selection: to be sure, “Turning Japanese” isn’t about actually being Japanese (nor is it about masturbation. Well, apparently.). And inter-cutting shots of her with hentai imagery – like, say, the upskirt shot on the billboard seconds after the one on Dunst – takes Dunst’s character out of the sympathetic realm and into Male Gaze territory. And as someone who had to sit through Terminator: Salvation, I don’t think McG thought it through that thoroughly.

Finally, there’s the “interactions” with the locals. The vast majority of them are wordless Others, watching the camera with blank looks. The guys in the jumpsuits, it seems, are members of a local dance troupe, and they at least get to be active. But otherwise the actual Japanese people here are either spectators, or look like they’re wondering who this girl is who’s ripping off Gwen Stefani’s act.

While Arturo was gearing up for Comic-Con, and Joe hung out at the Asian American Comic Con, I spent the weekend at Otakon.

Stepping off the bus near the Convention Center, I felt myself involuntarily break into a smile. Neko ears, Naruto headbands and wings galore. For three days, the Baltimore Harbor area transforms into planet anime, and you never really know what you’ll catch out of the corner of your eye.

The locals tend to be amused. As I was walking down the street, a woman rolled down her window and hollered at the boy in front of me. “Excuse me – what’s going on here? Is it a Harry Potter convention?”

“What? No!” he said with a pained voice, pulling his Ichigo Kurosaki costume tighter around his thin brown frame.

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed.

Otakon has changed a lot since I started going. This was my fifth year at the Con, and my crew’s 10th. I stopped counting other minorities in 2007. When I first arrived, in 2005, I counted the number of other black women at the convention (5), the number of black men I saw (around 30). While I did not count Asians or Latinos, their numbers have also steadily risen along with con membership. While it is still dwarfed by the comics industry (manga has about half of the market share that American comics enjoy), it is a growing subgenre.

Walking around the con this weekend, I enjoyed the sheer diversity of it all. Interracial couples were so common as to be unremarkable, the united colors of nerd-dom where out in full force and the kids who generally can’t catch a break in high school were allowed three glorious days to let their freak flags fly.

I wonder, if I had started attending conventions now, would I hold the same views that I have on the crushing whiteness of fandom?

I don’t know. My perception as a reformed Otaku is colored by those first few years. So, before I set foot in Baltimore, I had already half composed a few pieces on normative whiteness in fandom, cultural appropriation and otakudom, the racial politics of cosplay, and the idea of cultural others. But going to the Con this year reminded me of why I go in the first place.

At its worst, anime fandom becomes a cesspool of orientalist thinking and othering, yet another way to take from the bounty of the world and exploit it for profit. However, at its best, Otakudom shows the power in cultural connection, in exploring and understanding others, and in finding things to celebrate about everyone.

So, it will be with these two ideas I approach this series on Race and Otakudom.

Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments. Articles are already planned on:

• Why Anime characters look “white” (Short answer: They don’t.)
• Wacky Japan and Profiting Off Stereotypes
• Samurai Champloo and the Art of Cultural Remix
• The Racial Politics of Cosplay
• Is Otakudom a White Space?

(Image Credit: Afro-Samurai Cosplayer, Otakon 2007, snapped by Robert Barker)