The scariest thing that can happen in the middle of a disaster is to know that your friend is in the middle of it — and to see a Facebook page lie dormant as the hours pass.

It’s time for a new episode of Mediaite Office Hours, from Livestream.com’s studio at 3pmET. Joining us today will be Slate‘s Mickey Kaus, Jonathan Fuhrman, and more.

Cuban blogger Orlando Luis Pardo reported earlier this week on citizen journalism portal All Voices that award-winning writers Manuel García Verdecia and Rafael Vilches Proenza were fired from their jobs and expelled from the local writers union for improper use of the Internet.

British singer/songwriter Billy Bragg is no newcomer to political activism. But the guy who published a record called Talking with the Taxman About Poetry thinks now is the time to talk with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about money.

Mediaite’s “Meet The Prensa” columnist Jose Simian is not only a producer at NY1 Noticias, but a huge music fan — obvious on this site in English and at NY1 in Spanish in his ongoing series of interviews with Latin luminaries of literature and music. In this installment, he speaks with Latin-Canadian singer Amanda Martinez [...]

I’ll take any decade over one in which the mention of being Latino prompted immediate “Livin’ la Vida Loca” (1999) jokes or (worse) someone trying to dance the “Macarena” (circa 1996). As far as artificial time measurements go, the Aughts had an easy chance of beating the Nineties in terms of Latino cultural penetration into [...]

How often are Hispanics portrayed in major media outlets? Not remotely close to their 15% of the U.S. population, a new study from the Pew Hispanic Center argues.

Latino activist Roberto Lovato co-founded Basta Dobbs, the most notorious of the Latino grassroots organizations that angrily called for the firing of CNN’s controversial anchor. With his abrupt resignation last week, Lovato and Latinos were celebrating — and taking some of the credit. To him, it’s an example of Latino clout in this country — and a voice CNN had no choice but to listen to. Mediaite’s Jose Simian spoke with Lovato exclusively about what he called their “victory.”

One week after she says she was beaten by Cuban authorities — an act of press repression that has been condemned by Human Rights Watch, the InterAmerican Press Association and the U.S. Department of State — Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez is going on the offensive, using her blog and Twitter account to move from prey to vigilante.

Following the news of the assault on Yoani Sánchez and other bloggers by security forces last Friday in Havana, the United States has decided to intervene. Late on Monday, the Department of State issued the following statement, openly denouncing the Cuban government and promising “inquiries” on the status of the bloggers:

Yoani Sánchez, one of the most notorious voices of Cuban dissidence, said she was kidnapped and beaten last Friday by state security agents. Mediaite spoke with Sánchez, who is resting at home — on medical orders — by phone from Havana last night.

I see high chances that the next great report on Latinos in the United States will be entitled “What is it that Latinos want?”

CNN’s documentary “Latino in America” (no official online video as of this writing) debuted last week to great expectations, but so far the response from Latinos has been mostly negative, toward the special and its host Soledad O’Brien.

Outside of the United States, soccer is considered the greatest game ever invented, a matter of national pride, and sometimes a reason for life and death. And in many of those places, last weekend everything literally stopped for a few hours to watch the second-to-last round of the qualifier matches for the 2010 World Cup. There was success for the U.S., drama in Argentina, and even some web antics.

So what did President Obama say to Univisión? It was hard to tell.

As I began to watch the interview he gave to Jorge Ramos, I found myself moving closer and closer to the TV, as if I were deciphering a strange language. The premier Spanish network had made the awful choice of dubbing instead of subtitling the interview.

For several years, Dobbs has relentlessly attacked immigrants on an almost daily basis. His disdain for Latinos and immigrants is as obvious as his disdain for facts. For Dobbs, it was okay to report that “illegal aliens” were causing an increase in leprosy. False. For Dobbs, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is in cahoots with drug cartels. False. And for Dobbs, it was okay to fundraise on his CNN web site in support of a Pennsylvania town’s harsh anti-immigrant ordinances. Outrageous, all under the CNN umbrella as “the most trusted name in news.”

After four hours of electrifying tennis, 20-year old Juan Martín Del Potro defeated Roger Federer in the US Open final. It was an unexpected feat by the 20-year old Argentinean, who was playing his first Grand Slam final. During the trophy ceremony, Del Potro made a request. “Can I speak in Spanish?” he asked.

“It was not a campaign of El Diario to get her to the Supreme Court,” she says firmly. “Clearly, no amount of campaigning can get you that job. She filled all the criteria.” Rossana Rosado, publisher and CEO of one of the fastest growing newspapers in the country chooses her words carefully but not without [...]

It started as a quiet radio talk show—a dialogue between two journalists from competing Hispanic television networks. Both were praising the way their stations had been covering the ongoing hearings of Sonia Sotomayor before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was the usual display of Hispanic pride, respect for the accomplished judge and her mother, and [...]

Where is the Hispanic New Yorker? What would a Latino-oriented equivalent look like? Questions like these have haunted me ever since I started working for a local Spanish TV station four years ago. And while I am aware that “a Hispanic New Yorker” could be an oxymoron —it can be seen as a product of a white-dominated world— the idea may be useful to try to explain the lack of sophisticated national outlets for the largest minority in the country.