Ethnic Media Watch

San Jose Mercury News closes Nuevo Mundo, sells Viet Mercury

Though interest and popularity of Spanish language media has experienced a surge in the past few years, Knight Ridder announced October 21st it would be putting Nuevo Mundo to bed for good and replacing it with Fronteras de la Noticia, a Spanish-language daily that is produced in Mexico and outsourced to 14 U.S. markets, New America Media reports. The liquidation of its 9-year-old Spanish language weekly coincides with news of a possible sale of Knight Ridder's entire media outlet as well as an American Society of Newspaper Editors study released last month that reported a 2.6 percent overall drop in weekday circulation for most of the country's 20 largest dailies. Critics, including the National Association of Hispanic journalists have voiced concerns that replacing local ethnic papers with Spanish language papers that only have two pages of local editorial content will cost the community a paper that serves its specific needs as well as Latino journalists jobs and the quality reporting the Spanish-speaking Silicon Valley community is accustom to. In the NAM article, Felix Gutierrez, professor of journalism at USC's Annenberg School for Communication says the corporatization of Spanish language media is becoming a trend throughout the news industry. "Anytime you can produce for pesos and sell for dollars," he said, "you're going to make money."

In the same press release, Knight Ridder announced the sale of its Vietnamese language weekly, the No. 1-read publication in that language, Pacific News Service reported. Though the Vietnamese community there has two handfuls of options when it comes to hearing and reading news in its native tongue, Viet Mercury stood out in a seemingly overcrowded market. PNS reports: "As one longtime Vietnamese reader in San Jose put it recently, "You read the Viet Merc and the San Jose Mercury News for information. You read community papers to know where the community stands on the issues and when to protest."" Jim Nguyen, a sales staff person at the old Viet Mercury along with other Vietnamese 'mystery investors' bought the paper, which suffered a financial loss after the dot-com bubble burst and after 9/11. The community is reportedly suspicious of the new owners of the Viet Mercury because to date, the team has not come forward to introduce themselves. All readers have to go on now are rumors that the money could be coming from investors in Vietnam.

New America Media releases Katrina Poll Results
In an effort to provide a counter view to the multiple shortsighted polls conducted after Hurricane Katrina, New America Media conducted a national poll last month that went beyond blame and presented the opinions of oft overlooked ethnic and immigrant communities. In an earlier interview, NAM director Sandy Close said, "We need an inclusive discourse about Katrina. We need to make sure we hear from, learn from, inquire from all communities." The poll was conducted in six languages and included four racial/ethnic groups. One major finding was that among four ethnic and racial groups in the U.S., eliminating poverty here was more important that fighting terrorism, establishing democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan and even rebuilding the cities and regions devastated by natural disasters. Read additional findings here.