Línea Directa is an award-winning Spanish-language television series that provides Latino families living in the Washington metropolitan area with information on their rights, as well as on important health, legal, education and social service issues.  For more than 28 years, the weekly program has been welcomed into thousands of Latino households as a trusted connection that links local residents to services available from government agencies and nonprofit organizations.

A public service media partnership that has not been duplicated anywhere else in the nation allows Latino Impact to produce Línea Directa in the studios of NBC4 in Washington, D.C.  The half-hour program is then broadcast and cablecast throughout the region by Telemundo Washington during one of the channel’s most coveted time slots – Saturday mornings, at 11:00 a.m.

In the commercial world of Spanish-language television, Línea Directa has often been alone in offering solution-oriented discussions about such critical, but under-reported issues as the parental role in education, affordable medical services for families without health insurance, the rights of Latino workers, the Afro-Latino experience, domestic violence, citizenship and voting, teen pregnancy, the LBGT community, breast and cervical cancer, bullying, pedestrian safety, consumer fraud, and the local settlement of Central American children fleeing gang violence.

On November 30, 2015, the Washington Post honored Línea Directa with a front-page article in the Metro Section that focused on the program’s many years of service to the Latino community.  The story looked back at the historic impact of the program and highlighted the fierce commitment of Línea Directa to improving the lives of Latino viewers.  Here is a brief excerpt from the article:

“The worried face of then-D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon flashed on the television screen, right after images of a torched vehicle, shirtless looters celebrating atop an overturned police cruiser, officers slamming a person against a car and a photo of the Latino man whose shooting by police had provoked three days of riots.  ‘What steps have been taken to address this grave situation?’ a Spanish-speaking narrator says dramatically. ‘Today on Línea Directa.’

That show, on a May day in 1991, remains one of the most-watched ever in the 25-year history of Línea Directa, which began as a series of unpolished public service announcements and has become the go-to news show for the region’s growing and upwardly mobile Latino community.”