My thought process behind this was that all of us humans may do things a certain way, but how and why so? I tried to maintain most of my interview subjects (both academic and journalism professionals) Hispanic/Latinx since I wanted to keep this project in the viewpoint of the people I’m analyzing: Hispanics in the U.S. I wanted to inform the public about their stories and collective knowledge of the topic at hand.

I reached out to my interviewees via email and after receiving replies from them, we scheduled a date that best accommodated both of us. I acquired their email addresses thanks to the help of my journalism professors: Jessica Retis, Liliana Soto, and Kendal Blust. While my main form of contact were emails, I also messaged people through social media (such as Instragam, Facebook, Twitter - now known as “X”-, and Linked In). Furthermore, a snowball effect was implemented since I asked each person I contacted for the contact details of one or more other people they know. Therefore, my professors and my interviewees would let me know of anyone that could be a potential interview candidate, which I thank immensely. 

The interviews were conducted via phone call, Zoom, and in person. My Zoom interviews were downloaded into my computer, which allowed me to obtain the Zoom video and audio recordings.  My project relied mainly on audio (which was obtained by my phone or a professional handheld recorder provided by the journalism department). This, I believed, made some of my interview subjects feel more secure. When interviewees were not available to  meet for an interview, they sent me their responses to my interview questions via audio recording. The length of the interviews varied, but they mainly consisted of forty minutes to an hour.

Lastly, I also thought it would be interesting to interview people to ask them about their thoughts on Hispanic journalists utilizing the Spanish pronunciation of Spanish-origin words. The three survey questions I asked were the following:

1. What’s your full name, age, and major/occupation? (Their names were kept anonymous in my study.)

2. Are you aware of the Vanessa Ruiz 2015 reporting “issue”? (If they did not, I explained it to them.)

3. Do you as a consumer of media mind when journalists pronounce things a certain way? For example, do you mind when journalists utilize the original pronunciation of words, like Vanessa Ruiz, who utilized the Spanish pronunciation of “Mesa” and “Mexico, instead of the anglo pronunciation”? Please explain.

I walked up to random individuals around campus (such as the Student Memorial Center, César E. Chávez, and Marshall buildings), asked for their permission to be interviewed with a few quick questions, and assured them they would remain anonymous if they wanted to since my goal was to acquire an overall number of opinions and seek out the general consensus of the matter. Aside from students (who made up most of the younger population), I also asked older adults on campus (Communications and César Chávez buildings) and in Cost Cutters (a hair salon on University Boulevard). The goal in interviewing young and older adults was to analyze the varying responses and if one generation preferred a certain pronunciation over the other. The interviews lasted from 1-3 minutes, were conducted in Spanish and English, and were recorded on my phone’s Voice Memo application.

As for information not gathered via interviews, I sought out scholarly/journalistic articles through Google Scholar and the University of Arizona’s library. I also watched and heard video/audio clips from journalists in their news programs. Throughout all of these sources, I was able to acquire information on Spanish as a heritage language, bilingualism, Hispanic/Latinx reporters, the U.S. Latino/northamerican market, accent reduction, and more. 

As for the list of questions that I asked to my main interviewees (journalists and academia professionals), I have included them in the Annexes section of this document. I divided the questions in parts, such as “Journalism Profession Questions”, “Spanish Language Questions For Journalists”, and “Academia Professional Questions”. I tried my best to ask everyone the same questions given their respective profession and expertise. However, the questions in bold were the ones I tried to focus on the most.