Model and Strategy
Despite Latinos being the fastest-growing demographic group in the United States and the largest ethnic group in much of the Southwest, Latino media and journalism –which are pivotal for civic engagement –do not have the representation, funding, or organizational sustainability commensurate with the size and needs of this population.
The Latino Media Collaborative (LMC) was founded in 2019 in response to this need. LMC leverages the power of ethnic and community media to impact policy, change narratives, and promote civic engagement, while simultaneously supporting advancement of the sector through capacity building, research, and advocacy. LMC has fostered a network of over 25 print, digital, and broadcast Latino media outlets in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and beyond. Its network encompasses smaller, hyperlocal outlets as well as statewide and national partners like Radio Bilingue, Spanish Broadcasting System, NBC/Telemundo, and Univision.
LMC’s Community Media Resiliency Program and Next Gen Media Entrepreneurs Program help media outlets and journalists of color build sustainable, independent media. Through partnerships with CalMatters, Black Voice News, and other media organizations, LMC helps Latino media reach scale in their community-focused ventures. LMC and its affiliated media roundtables also build cross-sector coalitions between Latino and ethnic media, issue leaders, and community influencers to ensure that communities have access to high-quality independent news while building resiliency in the sector.
In 2022 LMC launched its flagship CALÓ News, a digital English-language news and media outlet dedicated to providing local, regional, and national coverage about and for the Latinos/as/x communities.
Over the next two years, LMC’s strategic goals include to:
- leverage the LMC network to implement informational campaigns that educate and civically activate the Latino community and change the narrative on key issues facing Latinos;
- implement a multifaceted capacity building model for media outlets and journalists;
- develop and begin implementing a policy advocacy agenda that benefits ethnic media; and
- uplift research that advances ethnic media.
Impact
Founded less than five years ago, and emerging during the Covid pandemic, Latino Media Collaborative’s proudest accomplishments of the past few years include:
- The launch of CALÓ News. CALÓ News is one of the only English-language, Latino-serving outlets in California, producing multiple articles and news stories every day on the most pressing issues impacting Latino communities ranging from housing to economic opportunity to healthcare. CALÓ News fills a significant niche: reaching the growing, influential Latino population that prefers to read its news in English.
- Stop Disinformation campaign. LMC recently launched the Stop Disinformation / Diga No a La Desinformación campaign, a year-long voter media literacy campaign to counter the growing spread of political and social disinformation in the Latino community. The campaign encompasses digital videos, reported and investigative stories, live events, and billboards to inform its Latino audience and give them tools to identify, research, and counter disinformation across media platforms. This campaign fills an urgent need to build an informed and civically engaged body politic: disinformation has been targeted at and particularly salient among Latino communities; Spanish-speakers are particularly vulnerable because of their heavy use of platforms such as YouTube and WhatsApp.
- Stop The Hate media campaign. Since 2022, LMC and 10+ partner outlets have implemented Stop the Hate, a campaign to raise awareness about and help prevent hate crimes and hate incidents, as well as to connect victims and survivors and their families to resources for healing. Through content development and dissemination via CALÓ News, as well as re-granting to ethnic and hyperlocal media outlets in the LMC network, the campaign is focused on hate perpetrated against Latino and immigrant communities, as well as combating negative racial stereotypes and fallacies that live within the Latino community about AAPI, Black and other communities of color.
- Latino Media Summit. For the past two years, LMC has brought leading California-based Latino media professionals, policy-makers, journalists, and academics under one roof at the Latino Media Summit to explore the burning questions of the industry and help chart a path forward for the future of Latino journalism.
- Diálogo Series. In 2024, LMC launched the Diálogo Series, which brings together media and community leaders, academics,and others to discuss key issues affecting the Latino community and media space. The first Diálogo, held in March, focused on the journalism crisis in Los Angeles: the confluence of shutdowns, layoffs, and operational struggles with a new era of disinformation, AI-generated deep fakes, and growing distrust in media. Other Diálogos planned for the year will focus on topics such as anti-hate, shared prosperity, health, andLatino leadership in media, among others.
Leadership
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Arturo Carmona
President
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Esperanza Guevara
Managing Director