Leer en español.
In order to better serve the city’s vast Latino population and demonstrate our commitment to ensuring that this community has access to the journalism they need and deserve, the Long Beach Post is on a mission to increase its Spanish-language news coverage.
Long Beach Post en Español launched in 2020, but we’ve taken a step back to reassess how we’re serving our Spanish-speaking audience, and we want to hear from you in a community survey about how we can improve on delivering the news and information you need.
In collaboration with a team of journalism students from the University of Missouri, the Long Beach Post en Español team designed the survey as a first step in a months-long process of better understanding the information needs of the Spanish-speaking population of Long Beach, where 43.2% of residents are Latino. Through the use of the community survey, we will be able to evaluate the way information moves through the Latino community in our region and assess the ways in which we can produce information that meets their needs.
Our goal is to continue building a section of the Long Beach Post that highlights diverse voices and experiences as well as the vibrancy and nuance of our Latino population while also prioritizing transparency and accountability in our coverage. We hope to obtain a more detailed image of the demographics of Long Beach’s Spanish-speaking community to better understand the types of stories they want to see in local media, and to do so, we are following in the footsteps of other independent news organizations like El Tímpano who, with the help of the Listening Post Collective, has built strong ties with the Latino and Mayan immigrant communities in the Bay Area.
Over the next two weeks, Long Beach Post journalists will be meeting with community leaders, Latino-focused community organizations and members of the Latino community to learn about the issues that are important to them, where they go to find trustworthy information, and what obstacles they encounter when trying to find information that will help them make decisions and be civically engaged in their neighborhood and city.
According to the 2019 Latino Economic Report developed by Centro CHA and Cal State Long Beach, there are 202,761 Latinos residing in the city and the highest concentration of them live in Central, West and North Long Beach—areas that are often disproportionately impacted by high rates of crime, poverty, health inequity and digital access barriers, meaning their ability to find accurate, timely information is all the more crucial.
The work doesn’t stop there. Through this process, we hope to build connections with the community organizations and leaders that have already formed deep roots in their neighborhoods and tell their stories, too. The Long Beach Post en Español will be an extension of the already strong journalism we produce here at the Long Beach Post with the goal of improving the reach and relevance of our stories to our Spanish-speaking audience.
The survey will be available online here until Sunday, March 19.
An update to the Latino Economic Report is expected to be announced this month and the summit will be held sometime in April, according to Centro CHA Executive Director Jessica Quintana.