Ethnic Media Report
News by: La Opinion
Immigration has always been at the forefront of news coverage for La Opinion. During the first one hundred days of the Trump administration La Opinion focused its coverage on the response of the immigrant community in Los Angeles and the resources available to their readers.
The paper was founded by Ignacio E. Lozano Sr. in September 1926 in Los Angeles, California.
La Opinion is a leading Spanish language daily newspaper in the United States, the daily newspaper is actually the largest Spanish language paper in the United States with a popular readership second to the Los Angeles Times.
The beginnings of La Opinion saw a publication that was primarily an immigrant media. The publication covered stories primarily about the host country; Mexico. This was to accommodate its readership of recently emigrated Mexicans.
However, the Spanish daily transformed from an immigrant media outlet to an ethnic media outlet; which covers issues from both the host countries and the new community.
The first one hundred days of President Trump’s administration saw immigration policies in constant influx, with the Latino immigrant community at the front lines of the conversation.
La Opinion covered any and every major news regarding immigration; like the travel ban that affected seven Muslim countries to the pressure placed on “sanctuary cities” to cooperate with the federal government.
The Spanish daily focused its coverage on the resources available to its readers regarding immigration and ways in which the community was dealing with the changes being implemented by the current white house administration.
An example of this coverage is a story that La Opinion published which covered a Los Angeles Church hosting informational workshops for the immigrant community. The workshop featured immigration experts and local authorities offering advice to dealing with issues like raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
According to La Opinion immigration reporter Pilar Marrero, this is precisely the sort of coverage that the paper is aiming for.
“Our focus has definitely been on serving the informational needs of our audience.” Marrero said.
The informational needs as Marrero mentioned has been a top priority in the news coverage, with stories also featuring information on rising business of fraudulent immigration experts.
La Opinion also released a series of stories that detailed the consequences of the fear the Trump administration has instilled in the immigrant community. A major consequence as previously mentioned was fraudulent experts and businesses popping up claiming to guarantee immigrants temporary work visas that would protect them from ICE.
In an effort to engage readers in this news coverage and in the paper’s overall news coverage, La Opinion has attempted to implement social media.
Marrero explained that they have used tools like Facebook Live to stream interviews with immigration experts and host Q&A’s where readers are invited to submit all of their immigration concerns.
In fact the newspaper made use of hashtags to promote a series of stories with the hashtag #knowyourrights.
Readership of the paper has been on the decline in the past ten years. If the newspaper is to survive it must make more efforts to increase reader engagement.
A powerful tool that is being underused or perhaps not properly used is social media.
First generation American Nancy Moreno, whose source for immigration and other Latino issues comes from Spanish broadcast show Univision, said she believes if La Opinion made more of an effort to have a presence on social media she might actually read the paper.
“Usually if it comes up on my Facebook feed and it’s about immigration I’m mostly likely to click on it.” Moreno said.
La Opinion has a poor following on social media platforms like twitter, Instagram and Facebook and not compatible with the amount of content the paper has.
Marrero explained that the younger generation does not read the paper, but that the paper has hired younger staff to head stories on technology and lead the social media presence. She said readership consists of older folks and recent immigrants.
However, like Moreno, there are many descendants of immigrants in the Los Angeles community that have an interest in immigration and Latino issues who simply don’t have interest in picking up a newspaper.
This is an opportunity that the paper might take advantage of, reaching more of their audience through social media.
To increase engagement the paper can share link to major stories via Facebook and twitter. It can also utilize its YouTube channel, which has very poor subscription, to feature exclusive interviews.
This type of social media outreach might also serve as a way to attract former readers like Heriberto Cervantes, 53, who read the paper frequently when he first arrived to the U.S from Mexico thirty years ago.
“I always read it. I liked looking at the sports section and the news section.” Cervantes said. “I stopped because I started just watching the nightly news and now I also read about things on Facebook.”
In past years an older Hispanic demographic is now using social media platforms, primarily Facebook, to not only connect with relatives but also to learn about important issues that concern the Latino community.
La Opinion has implemented a smart trend by focusing on the informational needs and available resources to readers, however, their readership could increase if they made social media a serious part of their publication process.
Another idea for engagement would be to utilize citizen journalism. The paper could invite community members to contribute to story production by tweeting anything pertinent to the Latino community.
This would make readers feel more connected to the paper and the community they are part of.
La Opinion is a very important ethnic medium for the Latino and immigrant community and its content is reflective of that fact.
Readership would improve greatly if it implemented the previous mentioned strategies.
