Op Ed: The danger of losing the ethnic media

Posted by Catherine Stifter  March 9, 2009

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/03/05/the...

ASIANWEEK, San Francisco's English-language weekly for Asian Americans, and San Francisco Bay View, which has served the black community there for three decades, both have dumped their print editions. Siglo21, a Spanish-language paper published in Lawrence, is returning to publishing weekly after three months as a daily due to declining advertising. Ming Pao Daily in New York will shut down entirely, while Hoy New York abandoned print at the end of last year. At the venerable Ebony and Jet in Chicago, all employees must reapply for their jobs - that is, the jobs that remain.

With the ever-deepening cuts across the news business, these losses may seem worth no more than a shrug. AsianWeek, after all, employs only 11 staffers. But the harm goes deep. Ethnic media play a vital role in the communities they serve and do a great deal of unrecognized work for journalism.

Read more at the Boston Globe.

Tags: Boston Globe, Sally Lehrman
Topics: Business, Ethnic Media, Web 2.0