Hispanic media increasing as population grows

As more Hispanic families continue to settle in Indiana cities and towns, news organizations increasingly are trying to make them feel part of the community by giving them news they can use -- in Spanish.\nSome daily newspapers which have long provided local, state, national and international news for their communities are publishing Spanish-language papers for their new Hispanic residents. The publications often are monthlies left on news racks free of charge in Hispanic areas of the city where the daily circulates.\nIn Indianapolis, a new Spanish-language television station was scheduled to take to the airwaves Monday.\n"They're a segment of our community. We should reach out to them," said Gary Suisman, publisher of the Journal and Courier in Lafayette.\nThe decision to print a Spanish-language newspaper came after the paper's diversity committee met with Hispanic and Latino groups in Tippecanoe County four years ago.\n"Of course, the hope is over time, as they learn English, that they'll remember that we reached out to them," Suisman said.\nThe Hispanic population in the United States more than doubled during the 1990s, the 2000 census found. Many new arrivals were drawn by the booming U.S. economy and settled in areas of the South and Midwest that previously attracted few Latinos.\nCensus estimates released last month show that the nation's Hispanic population rose 4.7 percent to about 37 million between April 2000 and July 2001, surpassing blacks as the nation's largest minority group.\nIn Indiana, the number of Spanish-speaking residents has more than doubled in the last decade, to 185,000, more than half of the state's total Hispanic population of about 215,000.\nThe growing numbers of Hispanics mean the news media has to cover a culture it had little experience with before.\nIn the last decade, the state has seen more newspapers printed for Hispanic readers. Among them are La Prensa (The Press), produced by The Republic in Columbus, and La Comunidad (The Community), published by The Times in Frankfort.\nFrankfort is in central Indiana's Clinton County, which has the state's second-highest percentage of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home. In addition to publishing La Comunidad, The Times translates stories into Spanish on the newspaper's Web page.\n"I kind of put myself in their shoes. If I had to move to Mexico and I had to adapt to their society, boy, it would be pretty difficult," said Rick Welch, publisher of The Times.\nPapers published in Spanish provide a twofold benefit, said Zenaida Loveless, director of Hispanic Community Service, a United Way agency in Frankfort that helps Hispanic immigrants with visas and state governmental concerns.\n"If they didn't have the Spanish newspapers, they would not be able to know what's going on," Loveless said. "And it's brought the attention to the (Anglo) community what all this is about."\nNewspapers also have helped members of the state's Hispanic community find jobs and information on changing immigration laws, Loveless said.\nIn Indianapolis, at least three Spanish-language papers cater to burgeoning Hispanic populations, including the weekly La Ola Latina-Americano, or "The Latin American Wave."\nFor Publisher Ildefonso Carbajal, who distributes "La Ola" in eight Indiana cities, running a paper was his "American Dream" when he came to the United States illegally nearly 20 years ago.\nThere were weeks and months when he didn't get paid as the paper struggled to find advertisers. But he made changes, and his distribution at restaurants, grocery stores, and community service centers has grown to about 5,000 copies.\nNewspapers are not alone in reaching out to Hispanics. Indianapolis television station WISH, a CBS affiliate, will begin operating a low-power Spanish-language television station today featuring news and talk shows.\n"We have had an overwhelming response from people looking to get involved and be a partner for this operation," said Scott Blumenthal, general manager of WISH and regional vice president of the LIN Television Corp.\n"There are advertisers, there are community service organizations, there are governmental organizations that all are looking for a source to communicate to those people," he said.