Generally, for demographic stratification -- i.e., finding out what affects whom -- subjects are asked if they consider themselves hispanic or not, and they are asked their race, and based upon the answers to both questions they are characterized as white hispanic, black hispanic, native American hispanic, white non-hispanic, African-American non-hispanic, etc.

So the reporter may just be a numnutz failing to carefully sus out the facts, or the reporter may be rigorously accurate, since Zimmerman appears to be exactly that: white hispanic.

-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty