US: ethnic papers successfully focusing on community

Posted by John Burke on November 28, 2005 at 2:16 PM

At a time when virtually all circulations of major dailies are plummeting, ethnic papers are booming. Backed by steady streams of immigration and an editorial focus on the communities of the immigrant population, ethnic papers in cities around the country exemplify the trend toward local and niche coverage that many newspaper hounds have been predicting.

Noting their success, mainstream news organizations increasingly want a piece of the action. As of 2004, large newspaper companies owned 91 Spanish-speaking papers, or 13% of all Latino publications. And with stats showing that the number of Latino and Chinese media users will double by 2030, newspaper company interest is sure to keep rising.

But would purchases of local ethnic papers by mainstream organizations be beneficial?

For the papers themselves, it doesn't seem so.

Ivan Roman, executive director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists said, "We're just concerned that more and more newspaper companies try and go the cheap route and outsource coverage. Spanish language papers that cover the Latino community in the United States have a particular mission and have stronger ties to the community -- qualities that an imported paper cannot fill."

Although these papers do not make much money, often functioning in the red, they keep printing because of the community service they provide to which their staffs are dedicated.

Apart from community coverage, local ethnic papers also report on the native lands of their communities. Their public usually does not trust mainstream media's perception nor reporting on their homelands.

In these respects, purchases of ethnic papers by mainstream media may not work either.

In October, the San Jose Mercury News dropped two ethnic publications, one Spanish-language and one for the Vietnamese population, because they were not profitable. Furthermore, both faced stiff competition from small, family-run immigrant community papers.

Overall, if predictions that news will be more local are realized, they will cause more problems for mainstream newspapers. On one side, they are threatened by the Internet behemoth that can provide for both breaking news and local services. On the other, thousands of niche publications that already have established connections and trust with their communities. In order to compete, large newspapers will have to reinvent themselves, either for broad, instant Internet news or for specific audiences.

Source: Contra Costa Times

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