Last Updated: December 29, 2000
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Diversity
Working to reach immigrant readers
America’s smaller newspapers are trying a variety of
methods to reach Spanish-speaking newcomers to their communities
By Kathy Silverberg
The age-old concern of community newspaper editors struggling to reach
their readers with an engaging report now includes the added challenge
of newcomers who do not speak English.
Metro newspapers such as the Miami Herald have long-running publications
that serve Hispanics in their area. And some Spanish-language publications
have simply grown up on their own, serving large city populations of immigrants.
But the influx of foreign-born residents, particularly those from Mexico
and Central America, into America’s smaller communities is a relatively
new phenomenon, fed by the demand for workers in a labor-starved economy.
In the best tradition of newspaper editors, the search is on to find
a way to tell the stories of this new population and to reach potential
readers as well. The efforts are having varying levels of success.
Several small daily editors expressed frustration with the language
barrier, with attracting Spanish-speaking staff members and with reaching
a transient population that is here one day and gone the next.
“It’s frustrating that you can’t get the human part of the story because
the people don’t speak English very well and are not very trusting of us,”
explained Becky Smith, news editor of the Marietta Daily Journal in Georgia.
“The language difference is an extra barrier in addition to the barriers
you always have” as news reporters and photographers, she said.
Smith’s newspaper is located in a suburb of Atlanta where Hispanics
have come to work in the booming construction business.
Bill Brennan, executive editor of the Grand Island Independent in Nebraska,
pointed out that Hispanic immigrants to his area often are illiterate in
their native language as well as unable to speak English. That, he said,
ups the challenge. And Pete Ellis, managing editor of The Daily News in
Longview, Wash., agreed. “Some are not well-educated in their native language
and are not likely to be newspaper readers.”
Communities change, stories change
But that hasn’t stopped these editors, and many others like them across
the country, from working to represent changing demographics in their news
report.
“It has changed the kinds of stories we tell,” Smith said. Her 20,500-circulation
newspaper did a series some time ago on the impact of Hispanics in her
community. “We need to revisit that,” she said. The issue of day laborers,
those who gather at particular spots in the community each day seeking
work, has been the focus of several news stories. In addition, the Daily
Journal has reported on how the schools and public-service agencies have
been affected by the influx of non-English speaking residents who move
a lot and thus are difficult to reach with needed services.
Ellis says his newspaper, which is circulated to some 25,000 households,
has changed its approach to news coverage in two ways as a result of new
Spanish-speaking residents.
“We try to find positive stories about the minority community,” he said,
giving as an example their Father’s Day feature on an immigrant man supporting
his children with two jobs after their mother returned to Mexico.
On a regular basis, reporters are charged with interviewing new families
moving into the area from other parts of the United States as well as from
other countries. Longview is a growing area, Ellis said, so the stories
of newcomers are compelling to readers there.
The other new focus for The Daily News is publishing reports from Mexico,
since that’s the nation of origin for most of the area’s immigrants.
“We pay attention to events in Mexico because of our population and
because foreign trade is important to our area,” Ellis said. Recent coverage
of the presidential elections in Mexico is an example. “We’ve given a good
ride to that story,” he said.
Partnerships help ease risks
Altering approaches to covering news because of an area’s new Hispanic
residents carries some risks as the staff of the Grand Island Independent,
circulation 24,500, has discovered.
A segment of their Nebraska readership is second- and third-generation
Americans who trace their roots to Spanish-speaking countries. In general,
this group has distinct cultural and political differences from the newcomers
who work in area meat-packing plants, the Independent’s executive editor
explained. Some of the longer-term residents resent those who’ve come in
recent years while others are very supportive of efforts to make the newcomers
feel at home. The news staff must be sensitive to these differences, Brennan
said.
He believes efforts to reach new readers and to more accurately cover
the community can be aided by forming partnerships.
A Spanish-language newspaper for the area is printed at the Independent’s
plant and the two news staffs have worked together on several projects.
In covering a recent police shooting that involved a Hispanic victim, the
publisher of the Spanish newspaper LaPresa assisted Brennan’s staff with
the story.
Audience, advertisers not always there
Efforts to reach Hispanic residents with material printed in Spanish
have had disappointing results at some community newspapers. Editors say
there appears to be little interest on the part of advertisers to reach
this new audience.
In Longview, where most of the new Latinos have come to work during
the berry harvest, the newspaper tried a once-a-week page aimed at these
newcomers. “It was a lot of work for the staff, and the audience just wasn’t
there,” Ellis said. Instead the staff is now focusing on reaching new readers
in a different way. Two reporters whose beats include the neighborhoods
work at talking to all groups of people. And the staff has made connections
with churches, Protestant as well as Catholic.
“We recently did a story about the growth of evangelical Protestant
churches targeting the Hispanic community,” Ellis said.
The Grand Island newspaper has had some success with a number of Spanish-language
initiatives. The paper has printed articles in English and Spanish side
by side and a bilingual columnist discusses strategies to help newcomers
adjust to life in a new country.
In Newnan, Ga., the Times-Herald is publishing its Saturday edition
with a page in Spanish followed by English translations on a subsequent
page. The experiment is designed to test the waters before considering
a Spanish-language weekly, the publisher Sam O. Jones told the Associated
Press.
And in Florence, Ala., where an adjoining county has seen dramatic increases
in its Spanish-speaking population, the newspaper is publishing a single-page
insert on Fridays for papers going to that area.
The other challenge that editors mention repeatedly is the need for
Spanish-speaking reporters, editors and photographers. A reporter in Grand
Island has lunch weekly with a local Spanish teacher in an attempt to sharpen
his language skills. And the newspaper has tracked promising high school
students only to lose them when their families move away, Brennan said.
It may be a slow process, but editors are committed to telling stories
that accurately portray their communities. To a great extent, their success
depends on the dedication of their staffs.
“A big part of our mission here is to emphasize in our newsroom the
role of diverse people in our community,” Ellis said. “We need to think
beyond people who are like ourselves.”
Silverberg is the executive editor of the TimesDaily in Florence,
Ala.
