About not covering the story, Guaracao told CJR, “I never felt that was our job to do; it is for the rest of the media to do if they want. But it’s not for us.”

Unfortunately, other news outlets mostly avoided writing about the story too, overlooking the clear newsworthiness of a highly charged libel case involving the area’s largest Latino community paper and one of its most prominent Latino public officials.

Ricardo Hurtado, editor of the smaller paper Sol Latino, which did run stories on the lawsuit, said that Al Día’s articles were “clearly an exaggeration.” But coverage was slim elsewhere, with The Philadelphia Inquirer publishing a cursory 130 words on the matter. The story is not common knowledge in Anglo Philadelphia. If the Inquirer and other mainstream press took such media more seriously, Guaracao’s behavior would have likely played as scandal, and the news community would have been up in arms—a more appropriate response.

The affair provides a cautionary tale on the role newspapers play within ethnic or minority-language communities: papers like Al Día offer invaluable reporting on issues undercovered in the English-language press, and build community among people navigating the complexities of life in a new and foreign country. But all media outlets, ethnic or not, have the responsibility to ensure that the news is not hijacked by the powerful for the prosecution of arcane personal vendettas.

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