AP Issues Correction About Census Stats for Obamacare “Spanglish” Story

Jan 17, 2014
6:28 PM

The Associated Press story that had many Latino news outlets and pundits talking this week about linguistic issues and data about U.S Latinos has been corrected by the AP. In an update to the story “Health care website frustrates Spanish speakers”, the following correction was posted by the AP last night:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — In a story Jan. 12 about the Spanish-language health care website, The Associated Press erroneously cited a U.S. Census Bureau statistic on the number of U.S. residents who speak only Spanish. A 2013 Census report said 12.9 percent of Americans speak Spanish at home, and more than half of them are fluent in English as well; not that 12 percent of U.S. residents speak only Spanish.

The correction did not addresses the criticisms that the AP story’s claim that “Spanglish” and incorrect Spanish was used in the translated HealthCare.gov website, but the fact that it issued the following correction says a lot. It takes a lot for the AP to confess that it goof, and such news was a result of an intense social media reaction to the story’s sloppy reporting.

Last night, the Facebook page of Univision radio personality Fernando Espuelas shared the news. Espuelas, as well as this site and other outlets, were quick to call out the AP for its errors.

Fernando

Earlier this week, AP said that it was standing by the story. This is coming from a news outlet that reported certain Spanish (or Spanglish?) portions of the website were “mistakes,” the very same “mistakes” AP’s Spanish stories use.