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Newspapers in Spanish on the rise in U.S.
Associated Press
Mar. 27, 2004
Laura Wides
LOS ANGELES - Naomi Osorio is typical of the readers driving a boom in
Spanish-language newspapers across the United States.
Osorio arrived in Southern California two decades ago from Nicaragua and easily
glides between English and Spanish. But she prefers Spanish-language papers.
Her choice is not just about language. The 38-year-old cosmetics vendor said
it's about reading news she can relate to, whether it's about immigration laws
or Latin pop stars.
"My family has always read La Opinion," Osorio said. "It's the newspaper of
Latinos. It fights for us."
As many American newspapers struggle to hold readers, the industry's
Spanish-language segment is expanding circulation and seeing competition
increase. An influx of Hispanic immigrants and the growing buying power of those
who have been in this country for years have motivated major media companies to
revamp or launch Spanish-language dailies in about half a dozen major cities.
The competition was heightened in January when major dailies in Los Angeles and
New York merged into a single company, Impremedia LLC. The company's goal is to
build the country's first independent group of nationwide Spanish-language
newspapers.
"There's this speed to market that everyone is ramping up for. Who's going to be
first?" said Monica Lozano, a senior vice president of Impremedia and publisher
of Los Angeles-based La Opinion, the nation's largest Spanish-language
newspaper.
In recent years, dozens of Spanish-language papers have sprung up in cities and
towns across the country, from Yakima, Wash., to Vidalia, Ga. An estimated 344
daily and weekly Spanish-language newspapers were published in the United States
in 2003, compared with 166 in 1990, according to the Latino Print Network, the
sales and research division for the National Association of Hispanic
Publications.
"But it's really been the blip of the last year, seeing this as national
corporate initiatives rather than local ones," said Felix Gutierrez, a visiting
professor of journalism at the University of Southern California who specializes
in Hispanic media.
Overall, the U.S. newspaper industry is fighting to hold on to readers and
attract new ones. About 54 percent of Americans read a paper each week, down 11
percent from 1990, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Demographics are the main reason for the boom in Spanish-language papers.
Hispanics are the nation's largest minority group with 38.8 million people in
2002, or more than 13 percent of the U.S. population. That figure is expected to
reach 20 percent by 2035, according to U.S. Census figures.
But it is the ties Hispanic immigrants have to their native countries that feed
growth in Spanish-language papers.
Maurico Escobar is a recent arrival. He often grabs a Spanish-language paper in
the morning as he awaits the bus on his way to his construction job.
"They have everything," said Escobar, 57, who arrived two years ago from El
Salvador. "They have the sports like soccer that aren't covered in other papers,
and they have all the news from back home for those of us who are foreigners."
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