The Viet Mercury, a free paper aimed at the Bay area's large Vietnamese population, is being purchased by a local group of Vietnamese-American investors and will retain its masthead title for the time being. With a circulation of 35,000 the free paper is fairly well known in Vietnam as well.

Nuevo Mundo, a 57,000 circulation free paper for the area's Latino population, and The Guide, the Merc's five weekly neighborhood sections, will cease publication completely. 

The Merc's editor Susan Goldberg reassured the local ethnic communities saying, "Coverage of the Hispanic and Vietnamese communities always has been and remains part of our core mission in the daily Mercury News."

But with less newsroom staff, it will be more difficult to cover these communities.  

Considering today's newspaper trends, discontinuing niche publications may not be the correct long-term strategy.  For example, Hispanic papers are on the rise in the United States. Furthermore, many pundits think that because of shrinking budgets and 24-hour international news stations on television and the Internet, newspapers will have to focus more on their core audience, their local readers, in order to survive. 

In a similar manner, The San Jose Mercury News strength lies with residents in its own backyard. By eliminating two papers that cover specific communities within the larger Bay area, they will only isolate, and eventually lose, more readers.

Source:  SiliconValley.com