Two media veterans last week launched an initiative to fund newsrooms focused on Latino audiences.
Why it matters: Latinos make up nearly 20% of the U.S. population, yet few media outlets dedicate resources to reporting on them.
- Only about 6% of journalism grants go to “racial and ethnic groups,” and it’s unclear what share of those are Latino outlets.
Zoom in: The Latino Media Consortium was launched by Amanda Zamora, the co-founder and former publisher of the 19th, and Lucy Flores, founder of Luz Media.
- Nine local and national Latino-focused news outlets — all independent — are members of the first cohort. The outlets are digital-first, and some are in English whereas others are in Spanish.
- The goal is to raise $100 million for Latino-focused media outlets in five years.
What they’re saying: Zamora says that, when co-founding the 19th, she was focused on gender representation, but she was also cognizant of how little funding Latino-focused news organizations get compared to mainstream organizations.
- “Disrupting mainstream narratives has always been my focus, and I think this project squares that up very specifically,” says Zamora.
- Zamora says she wants to see the news organizations who sign up grow at their own pace and to their liking, and to be able to focus less on fundraising and more on journalism.
- “We’re really trying to be adaptive to publishers’ unique needs, because, in turn, they’re being adaptive to their audiences’ unique needs.”
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