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HISPANIC NEWSPAPERS: KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE AND DEVELOPING A DISTINCTIVE VOICE ARE VITAL
By Gilbert Bailon, Publisher and Editor of Al Dia, Dallas
Member, NAA New Readers and Revenue Advisory Committee
While many newspapers have ridden choppy financial waters in the last two years, some companies have taken the plunge and created Spanish-language publications to target the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population.
Spanish-language newspapers have deep and longstanding roots in the United States . The number of dailies, weeklies, shoppers, entertainment guides and yellow-page directories has been growing steadily over the last two decades.
El Diario La Prensa in New York City is more than 90 years old. Its sister daily also owned by ImpreMedia Inc., La Opinion of Los Angeles , is more than 75 years old. The National Association of Hispanic Publications has grown to more than 200 members.
The 2000 census data emphatically demonstrated that a pervasive and inexorable growth of the Hispanic population is touching virtually every corner of the country.
Already facing declining circulation numbers in many markets, some newspaper editors have concluded that Hispanics — more specifically Spanish-speaking or bilingual ones — represent an untapped audience that they and their advertisers should covet.
Nowhere more than Texas has this boomlet en español been more dramatic in the last 18 months, in which six Spanish-language newspapers were created, five of which were started from ground up.
La Estrella , formerly a twice weekly newspaper published by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, became Diario La Estrella with a Tuesday through Saturday distribution in September 2003.
In less than a month later, The Dallas Morning News started a Monday through Saturday daily Spanish-language newspaper that circulates with home delivery throughout North Texas . Al Día was formed with all new news and business-side staffs that collaborate with the metro daily.
Recoletos, a Spanish-owned media company that has the Financial Times among its holdings, invested $16.5 million to launch Meximerica Media Inc., which started daily tabloid newspapers called Rumbo in San Antonio , Houston , Austin and the Rio Grande Valley in 2004.
In turn, the San Antonio Express-News, Austin American-Statesman and the Houston Chronicle all started weekly Spanish-language publications within the last year.
Freedom Communications Inc. newspapers operate daily newspapers in Brownsville and McAllen in conjunction with their general-market dailies. Freedom also publishes three weekly Spanish-language newspapers in Texas .
The creation of Spanish-language publications spreads far beyond the traditional Hispanic regions in the Southwest. New publications have been founded in places such as Greeley , Colo. , New Brunswick , N.J. , Columbus , Ohio , Atlanta and Palm Beach , Fla.
Targeting underserved and growing newspaper markets encompasses a variety of tactics: from launching independent daily newspapers and collaboratively produced sections to purchasing an existing weekly Spanish-language newspaper to buying outsourced, turn-key content with low overhead to allow a localized Spanish-language newspaper to be published.
Spanish-language television and radio businesses are well established and were consolidated into several dominant companies. Advertising dollars have been flowing into these electronic channels, which provide local content supplemented with programming from Latin American sources.
While Spanish speakers represent high growth potential in the United States , readers in just a few large markets have long-term experience reading publications published more often than weekly.
Interviews with editors from 10 new Spanish-language newspapers show that no one model has emerged. Instead, each tailors its newspaper organization to a unique niche market and its sub-markets.
All agreed that recruiting talent and operating a newspaper that seeks to reach new readers in a different language and culture requires distinctive people and approaches.
Rumbo Makes a Splash
From July to November 2004, Meximerica Media Inc. launched four daily Rumbo newspapers from the headquarters in San Antonio in which a newsroom staff of 86 was hired for the Monday-Friday tabloids in San Antonio , Houston , Austin and the Rio Grande Valley .
Edward Schumacher-Matos, the CEO and editorial director for Rumbo, and vice president/editorial Jonathan Friedland, both formerly of The Wall Street Journal, executed the most ambitious launch of the Rumbo newspapers with a combined circulation of 90,000.
Rumbo has described its Texas initiative as the first salvo in a national strategy to link newspapers through the country to a centralized news production operation in San Antonio that also includes local staffing and localized content for each paper, which is augmented by shared international news and sports coverage.
“We launched Rumbo because we felt the time was right to create a chain of high-quality newspapers written by Hispanics for Hispanics,” Friedland said. “We hired a team of first-rate journalists and designers from 11 countries.
“We created papers that we believe are complete, concise, well-written and which feature extensive graphics and strong photography,” he continued. “We are focused on community news and on information critical to the lives of Hispanics here in the United States.”
The general-market metro papers in each Texas locale responded to Rumbo’s challenge.
The San Antonio Express-News, owned by Hearst Corp., created a Conexión, a bilingual weekly newspaper that circulates separately from the Express-News.
“Immigrant Hispanics still come to San Antonio , the majority of the Hispanics have been here three generations or more,” said Raul A. Flores, editor of Conexión. “Only 15 percent of San Antonio ’s Hispanic population is foreign born, with nearly 80 percent having entered the United States before 1990.”
Unlike most new newspapers whose core markets are the more newly arrived, Conexión seeks Hispanics who speak more English and are acculturated into U.S. traditions yet desire content that resonates with the ethnic group that makes up 60 percent of San Antonio ’s population.
The Conexión news staff has doubled from its launch size of four and another reporter is being recruited. The 50,000-circulation bilingual weekly competes with Rumbo’s Spanish-language daily.
In Austin, the Cox-owned American-Statesman created a new Spanish- language weekly called ¡ahora sí!, which targets Latinos 18 to 35 years old, immigrants and first generation born.
“Besides the obvious language issues, our biggest hurdle was putting together a staff that was not only knowledgeable about Spanish, but that was savvy abut the community we were targeting,’’ said ¡ahora sí! editor, Omar L. Gallaga. “Our audience is not necessarily the same as the reporters covering it; many of those things have become ingrained after a lot of reporting and community outreach.
¡ahora sí! is a tabloid with a weekly circulation of 33,000 that competes with Rumbo.
In Houston , the Chronicle faces daily competitors Rumbo and El Día, a 10,000-circulation newspaper owned a local family.
The Hearst-owned Chronicle created a partnership in April 2004 in which content from La Vibra, the weekly entertainment magazine published by La Opinion in Los Angeles , is used as a foundation for a local publication with local advertising and marketing.
La Vibra in Houston has a circulation of 100,000 that is distributed to predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods inside the Chronicle as well as independently. The Chronicle also purchased the formerly family-owned Spanish-language weekly, La Voz, after a 13-year collaboration.
Aurora Losada, editor of Spanish-language publications at the Chronicle, said La Voz is undergoing a redesign and eventually will be re-launched.
Along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley , Freedom newspapers responded to Rumbo by creating the daily La Frontera published by the McAllen Monitor and El Nuevo Heraldo produced by the Brownsville Herald. A third Freedom paper in South Texas , the Valley Morning Star in Harlingen , has a weekly called La Estrella.
DFW Becomes a Hot-Bed
Dallas-Fort Worth, which has the country’s seventh-largest Hispanic population, gave rise to two Spanish-language newspapers within a month in September 2003.
La Estrella, which started as an insert in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1994 and later became a twice-weekly newspaper, evolved into a daily broadsheet newspaper renamed Diario La Estrella.
Executive editor Juan Antonio Ramos said, “At the beginning, our challenge was to find not only the best-qualified journalists, but also those who had an understanding of this community and had experience covering it.”
The newspaper doubled it news staff and added more local coverage and new features, he said.
The free publication placed colorful red, white and green news racks in throughout Dallas County as well as targeting Fort Worth ’s home county, Tarrant.
The Dallas Morning News, owned by Belo. Corp. based in Dallas , launched a Monday-through-Saturday broadsheet with a newsroom staff of 32 people and total staff of 55 people less than a month after Diario La Estrella hit the streets.
Like many other editors, Al Día managing editor Alfredo Carbajal- Madrid said recruiting and retaining a bilingual, biliterate newsroom staff is a big challenge.
“There is no minor league system” or central recruitment pools at U.S. universities, he said. Al Día offers staff coverage in local news, sports and entertainment as well as coordinating with The Dallas Morning News on daily and enterprise reporting. Content is published in the Morning News under the Al Día credit line and vice versa.
The 40,000 daily circulation daily costs 25 cents on news racks and offers paid home delivery in the North Texas area in a separate poly bag with separate billing.
“Success is the way the community has received the newspaper,” said Carbajal-Madrid. “They expect a professionally edited, timely and credible publication.”
The news staff must establish a community connection that usually is very limited or non-existent with the general-market newspaper.
“A lot of the real players in the Hispanic community are under the radar,” he said. “It takes time to build those relationships and to build trust.
New wrinkles in the market
Tribune Co. had established newspapers in New York City and Chicago , both called Hoy. The New York publication is a daily started in 1998. A Chicago weekly called Exito became a daily and was renamed Hoy.
In the last year, Tribune, which also owns the Los Angeles Times, made a bold offensive by launching a third daily Hoy publication in Los Angeles , home to the market standard-bearer La Opinion.
Tribune outlined a strategy to link Hoy editorial content across the cities while also providing localized content and advertising. A key goal was to establish a national advertising vehicle in the country’s largest Hispanic markets.
Javier J. Aldape, who recently was hired as editor and vice president of audience development for the Hoy newspapers, said, “Having a multi- national team of journalists working toward a single goal is impressive; it allows us to accurately reflect the lives of all Hispanics.”
The national strategy is a different model with more moving parts.
“The ambitiousness of the distribution model” is one of the biggest hurdles, he said. New York Hoy is paid while the Chicago and Los Angeles tabloids are free.
“Having three operations in three cities, focused on three editions in three different time zones is both a challenge and a strength.”
Other models have emerged in smaller markets that have rapidly growing Hispanic populations.
The Arizona Daily Star , recently acquired by Lee Enterprises, last October created a free weekly tabloid called La Estrella de Tucson, circulation 44,000.
La Estrella de Tucson editor Jose Merino said, “We are becoming the ‘Hispanic-eye’ of the newsroom, meaning that we are covering this community more accurately. The crossover stories are increasing with the English paper.”
The personality of the Hispanic reader must be embraced.
“It has been hard to understand the ‘Hispanic-way’ of publications from the editorial to the visual side. Hispanic publications are much more loud and aggressive visually and the way we cover the news is a non- traditional way when compared to the mainstream media.”
The Palm Beach Post , owned by Cox, launched a free weekly on Feb. 6 in response to a Hispanic population that now is 15 percent of the market.
Editor Emily Mendez says the five-person newsroom has been challenged to produce a weekly broadsheet section that exceeds 40 pages. The small staff must work diligently to produce the weekly edition while also working to gain sources and trust in the community.
In Phoenix , the Gannett-owned Arizona Republic bought a majority interest in Ashland Media Group, a local company that publishes an entertainment weekly called TV y Mas and a weekly newspaper called La Voz.
The Republic also created an English weekly section called ¡Extra!, which targets English-speaking Hispanics who desire information about their community. The company provides some joint distribution of the English and Spanish-language dailies. The Wichita Falls Times Record north of the Dallas-Fort Worth area had prototyped a Spanish-language edition to target a Hispanic population that has grown to 20 percent in its home county.
No solid plans to start a Spanish-language newspaper took shape in the Scripps-owned newspaper, however.
Times Record editor Carroll Wilson said an immediate solution was turn-key content and translations now offered by Universal Press Syndicate. The 24-page weekly tabloid with separate distribution is a partnership between UPS and Danilo Black of Mexico .
The Wichita Falls edition, which launched in December, “has made money from the get go,” he said.
The 4,000-circulation newspaper has 175 points of distribution. Eight pages are available for local ads and three pages have locally translated news from the Times Record, circulation 36,000.
Translation and page design occurs in a central office in Mexico . The pages arrive electronically and camera-ready each week.
“Let’s take the market before someone else does,” Wilson recalls the company strategy.” The community is tickled to death to have something in Spanish here.”
By June, 10 general–market newspapers will have Fronteras, including Albuquerque , Santa Fe and Columbus , Ohio .
What the editors have learned
What do the editors on the front lines advise about running a Spanish-language or bilingual newspaper?
“Don’t sell your audience short,” Jonathan Friedland of Rumbo.
“Know your targeted audience. It’s not simply enough to put out a newspaper in Spanish,” said Gallaga of ¡ahora sí!. “The content and language must be tailored to your readers. The Spanish-language is broader than you think and what appeals to one segment of the Latino population may work in one city and may not work in another.”
Juan Antonio Ramos of Diario La Estrella says: “Know your market. That might sound as a simple suggestion, but it is critical for the success of a new publication.”
His counterpart in the Dallas - Fort Worth area, Carbajal-Madrid offered some similar advice; “Know your community, market firsthand. Experience the community yourself. Hire people with the same standards as the English-language newspaper. Compensation should be appropriate to their skills and market competition.”
Aurora Losada of the Houston Chronicle tells other newspaper editors: “Editorial standards should be exactly the same for the Spanish publication as they are for the English publication. Do not underestimate the Hispanic readers: they know what they want and how they want it. They won’t do with just about anything.”
“It all begins with content — content that is distinct, reflective and useful — and presented in an engaging manner,’’ said Aldape of Hoy newspapers. “As a niche product, a distinctive voice is essential, one that is urgent and even addictive to the reader, and also constantly refined to reflect their contemporary interests.”
Reprint Permission Provided by:
The American Editor
American Society of Newspaper Editors
April 2005