The Latino Media Consortium Is Here

I am so excited to tell our 682 subscribers and more than 5,000 social followers that The Latino Newsletter is an inaugural member of the newly-formed Latino Media Consortium (LMC).

Over at WeAreLatinoMedia.org (the LMC’s official site), all nine members published an open letter in English and Spanish about the group. I am sharing a section of the letter below. If you want to know more, the LMC has a formal deck about our plans that you can download. (The team does ask for your email address to access the deck.)

About the LMC

Here is the section of the open letter that hits home for me:

The utter dire state of Latino media, however, has made it increasingly clear that we need to highlight just how necessary it is to invest equitably in Latino media infrastructure. Nine Latino media operators —led by Lucy Flores, co-founder of Luz Media, and Amanda Zamora, co-founder of the 19th News and founder of Agencia Media, and supported by the Valiente Fund and the Latino Community Foundation— launched the Latino Media Consortium to pursue this goal.

Collectively, Latino Media Consortium publishers serve national and local audiences, immigrants and U.S.-born; they are nonprofit and for-profit and serve Latinos in their preferred languages of English, Spanish, or both. They report on issues fundamental to Latino lives —health care, child care, education, labor issues, government systems, and more— as well as the food, film, music, and culture that tie our communities together.

Latino Media Consortium publishers collectively grew their digital U.S. reach by 48% in the last year. Together, they serve more than 1.4 million people —nearly 4% of the Latino digital news market— across websites, social media, WhatsApp, events, broadcast, and podcasts. With comparatively scant budgets and under-resourced newsrooms, these Latino media operators are growing because they have the trust of Latino audiences that mainstream media doesn’t. 

And they deserve transformative investment. 

Latinos continue to give to this country, rarely asking for anything in return other than what they earned. But we are asking now, on behalf of the nation’s 64 million Latinos, for equitable investment in an imperative that’s necessary in order to preserve a free and functioning democracy. Record numbers of Latinos become eligible to vote every year, and every single year, we see record Latino voter turnout in elections across the country. To continue to allow such a vital constituency to remain woefully uninformed, vulnerable, and confused is immoral at worst and democratic malpractice at best.

Over the next five years, the Consortium aims to raise and distribute $100 million in transformative grants for an entire ecosystem of publishers serving digital-first, Latino audiences. We are putting journalists back to work; producing news, information, and culturally relevant content; and capacity building such as grant-writing, business development, operations, and product development. A robust investment in the entire ecosystem is crucial to helping these news and media organizations scale and sustain their operations for the long term.

This country and this community need and deserve nothing less.

Here is the list of the LMC’s inaugural members:

• Agencia Media

• Conecta Arizona

• El Tecolote

• Enlace Latino NC

• LatinaMedia.Co

• Luz Media

• Pulso

• palabra (a multimedia publication created by NAHJ)

• The Latino Newsletter

Personally, I am incredibly grateful to Lucy and Amanda for inviting me and The Latino Newsletter to join this incredible effort. The initial group they have created is fantastic. We are on the right path.

There will be much more to share. In the meantime, The Latino Newsletter will share more updates and wins about the LMC when they happen because they will.

And yes, follow the Latino Media Consortium on Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Let’s do this.

About the Author

Julio Ricardo Varela is the founder and interim publisher of The Latino Newsletter.

Do you believe in creating new journalism lanes for Latinos and Latinas? Do you believe that U.S. mainstream outlets will never understand our community? Consider donating to The Latino Newsletter. Any little bit helps to keep this newsletter free and accessible to all. ¡Gracias mil!