Ethnic Papers Far From Foreign in California

When a small ethnic newspaper in San Leandro reported this spring that McDonald’s was using beef extract to flavor its French fries, vegetarians were outraged and one of the fast-food giant’s restaurants in India was vandalized.

The scoop by the 25,000-circulation India-West weekly demonstrated the vitality of California’s ethnic newspaper industry, a rainbow of publications that mirrors the state’s increasingly diverse population.

No one knows how many ethnic newspapers are based in California. Only a handful of papers even provide advertisers with audited circulation figures. But California is home to an eclectic mix of ethnic media--including Armenian, Russian, Chinese, Thai, Pakistani, Korean, Japanese and Indian publications.

A recent survey of New York City’s ethnic media by the Independent Press Assn.-New York found 200 ethnic newspapers and magazines, a 33% increase since 1990. Academics say California’s ethnic press probably has undergone a similar spurt.

One measure of that growth is New California Media, a network of more than 200 publications that is angling for a larger share of advertising dollars. The organization grew out of a 1996 meeting at a dim sum house in San Francisco attended by representatives of just 24 publications.

“The ethnic press is alive and well because mainstream publications cannot address the various issues that are central to these communities,” said Barbara Reed, a Rutgers University journalism professor who has written a book about ethnic media. “Mainstream publications don’t have enough pages or reporters to keep track of what’s of interest to these people.”

In addition to breaking important news stories, ethnic media actively seek to influence policymakers here and abroad. But the process can create a delicate balancing act.

“We are pro-Pakistani, and we believe in the ideology of Pakistan,” said longtime editor Akhtar Mahmud Faruqui, who now serves as editor of Pakistan Link, a Tustin-based English-language weekly paper. “But we also try to act as a cohesive, unfettered source of information. We make our arguments in an intelligent, reasoned manner so [leaders in Washington and Pakistan] will listen to us.”

Getting the attention of the U.S. establishment isn’t always easy.

Bina Murarka, editor of India-West, is proud that her small newspaper, which circulates among Indian Americans, broke the McDonald’s story and prompted a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of Hindus and vegetarians.

Ethnic Media Not Seen as ‘Legitimate Players’

Despite beating the major media, however, Murarka said she’s yet to get a return call from the fast-food giant’s headquarters. “They talked to Reuters and AP,” Murarka said. “But do they talk to us? No. That’s just the way it happens.”

Being ignored is a fact of life for the nation’s ethnic newspapers. Critics complain that ethnic publications allow the interests of advertisers and political ideology to shape their news coverage. But defenders maintain that ethnic media continue to play a significant role in a country dominated by increasingly powerful media companies.

“Too often, these papers aren’t recognized as legitimate players,” said Sandy Close, executive director of New California Media, an industry group that has sided with ethnic publications in a long-running fight to gain more space in San Francisco’s City Hall press room.

Close described the press room situation as particularly vexing because “when you combine all of the ethnic media’s readers, they’ve got more subscribers than the Examiner and the Chronicle combined.”

A key to success remains “being a neighborhood storyteller,” said USC sociology professor Sandra Ball-Rokeach, who is studying the role that community media play in Los Angeles’ ethnic neighborhoods. “There’s a tremendous need for ethnic media. It’s a real niche to be filled because no one else is doing it.”

Newspapers and newsletters typically are among the first institutions that newly arrived immigrants establish. Yen Do began publishing a Vietnamese-language newspaper in 1978, three years after Camp Pendleton was turned into a transition center for Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian immigrants.

Nguoi Viet Daily News now has a dozen reporters working out of a Westminster office to produce a Vietnamese-language newspaper read by 18,000 subscribers.

The newspaper reflects the fervent anti-Communist leanings of its subscribers. Because the paper steadfastly opposes Vietnam’s government, it does not send reporters to Vietnam.

The Vietnamese press also underscores the white-hot emotion often evident in covering ethnic news. Five Vietnamese immigrant journalists have been assassinated while doing their jobs in this country since 1981, according to Jeffrey Brody, a communications professor at Cal State Fullerton who has studied Vietnamese-language papers.

Editors say close ties to their respective communities help to address a growing failure by bigger publications to properly reflect the country’s diversity.

“In California, the so-called minority people are actually the majority,” said Yuru Chen, editor in chief of the Millbrae-based World Journal Chinese-language daily. “The news covered by the mass media doesn’t fully represent the needs or demands of the majority of people. The ethnic papers are functioning to satisfy their needs.”

Offering Alternative Points of View

Chen points to Chinese-language media coverage of the federal government’s failed attempt to prosecute U.S. nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was accused of transferring nuclear weapons data to unsecured computers on behalf of China.

“The mass media was quite prejudiced,” Chen said. “They believed that there was a spy, without any proof. . . . [The Lee family] thought that we were more reliable, more willing to talk about what they had to say.”

Cable television and the Internet are changing how ethnic news circulates, but print publications generally remain clustered close to their readers. Southern California and San Jose, for example, have dozens of Vietnamese publications, whereas New York City has none. California has a dozen Armenian newspapers, and New York’s estimated 500,000 Haitians now have three publications to choose from.

Some ethnic publications are owned by international media companies. The Chinese-language World Journal, for example, is part of United Daily, a Taiwan-based media company. Another measure of the growing sophistication of ethnic media: Advertisers are being courted by ethnic advertising agencies, including Glendale-based Krikorian Marketing Group, which promises to deliver “one-stop Armenian marketing.”

Most ethnic publications, though, remain mom-and-pop operations.

“Sometimes, we put a lot of money from our other business into the newspaper,” said Pashree Super Pat, publisher of InterThai/Pacific Rim News, an English-language paper based in Los Angeles with an unaudited circulation of 10,000. “It’s almost like a donation. We do this for the education of young people, to continue the Thai culture and tradition.”

Safi Qureshey, who made millions of dollars after co-founding personal-computer company AST Research Inc., acknowledges that his 1999 acquisition of the Pakistan Link weekly newspaper “didn’t make sense as a business venture. . . . It’s not a moneymaker. I see it as a way to uplift the Pakistani community here in the United States. “

Along with radio and cable television programming, newspapers function as interpreters and guides in neighborhoods where newly arrived immigrants make their homes.

“Ethnic media are the most precious resource for a strong [immigrant] community,” said Ball-Rokeach, who is studying the role of community newspapers in such neighborhoods as Koreatown, Monterey Park, East Los Angeles and Pico-Union. “The residents can’t do everything by themselves. Community publications can be the heart of a strong community.”

By big-city standards, ethnic community newspapers are top-heavy with the stuff of daily life--births, marriages, deaths and graduations. There’s an abundance of immigration law columns and stories that try to guide readers through this country’s government bureaucracies.

Relatively affordable laser printers and computers are making it easier for small publications to enter the market. “This is still a good business to be in,” said Co Thien Nguyen, vice president of Nguoi Viet Daily News, which bills itself as the nation’s oldest Vietnamese paper. “But we have to work harder than we did 10 years ago.”

The most likely Achilles’ heel for ethnic newspapers is circulation. Most small ethnic newspapers can’t afford or don’t recognize the benefit of providing audited circulation figures to advertisers. “Many of these publications are off the radar screen,” said Bill Imada, co-founder of Imada Wong Communications Group, a Los Angeles advertising agency that specializes in Asian-language advertising.

The near-uniform lack of verified circulation figures is based on the fact that many ethnic newspaper publishers approach their publications as a passion rather than a business.

“It’s about love of country ,” said Khurram Syed, vice president of business development at Pakistan Link, with an unaudited circulation of 25,000. “But ethnic media as a whole has to go a step further and learn to run a publishing business in this country.”

“You’re often talking about people who start newspapers as a vehicle of communications in their community,” said Vincent Martinez, market director for American Minorities Media, a Ventura-based company that connects General Motors Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and other big advertisers with ethnic publications. “They often don’t realize there’s a benefit from advertising because their goal is to inform their community.”

Youth, Assimilation Pose Challenges

Advertising agencies that specialize in ethnic media are helping to bridge that gap. Krikorian Marketing Group, which specializes in Armenian media, also serves Arabic, Persian and Russian media in Southern California. “Compared to the Spanish-language or black publications, it’s just a little piece of the pie,” said Greg Krikorian, president of the agency. “But when you combine the four groups together, you’re talking about a significant population clustered in Los Angeles and Orange County.”

Today’s circulation figures aren’t the only concern facing the ethnic press. Academics note that the U.S. had more than 200 Norwegian-language newspapers at the end of the 1800s. But as immigration from Norway waned and transplanted Norwegians assimilated, the number dropped to just a handful.

The nation’s African American papers also face a potential threat as their readership base ages, Martinez said. “This is an old, respected institution, but the average reader’s age is much older than, say, in the Hispanic market,” Martinez said. “All you hear in advertising these days is youth, so that’s something that looms as a real danger.”

Changing immigration patterns also are affecting California-based publications that target Japanese Americans. “There’s no new immigration to speak of, intermarriage is increasingly common, and after two or three generations, many [Japanese Americans] identify themselves as Americans of Asian Pacific ancestry,” Imada said.

Nonetheless, there are about two dozen major Japanese newspapers in California, including about 15 in Southern California alone, according to Imada. Newspaper publishers and editors are struggling to add features that appeal to younger readers. Qureshey has invested in technology that allows Pakistan Life to use more color photographs to appeal to younger readers. KoreAm Journal, a Gardena-based publication, describes itself as “a forum for English-speaking Korean Americans.”

India-West offers a youth page that encourages young Indian Americans to “write about what they want to see, rather than what my reporters or I might want,” Murarka said. “It’s mostly about their lives here in the U.S., how they cope, what problems they have.”

The growing number of bilingual papers--or ethnic papers written solely in English--is laudable, Close says. “These papers are reinventing the genre for a whole new generation. And they’re trying to stretch the idea of an ethnic publication beyond just race or ethnicity.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Ethnic Journalism

California is home to dozens of Spanish-language and African American newspapers, newsletters and magazines. The state also boasts a wide array of publications serving other ethnic groups. A sampling, ranked by circulation:

*--*

Name Location Circulation* Korea Times Los Angeles 43,500 Philippine News San Francisco 39,657 Weekend Balita (Filipino) Glendale 32,000 Journal Francais (French) San Francisco 30,000 Nguoi Viet Daily News (Vietnamese) Westminster 25,000 The Rafu Shimpo (Japanese) Los Angeles 20,000 California-Staats Zeitung (German) Los Angeles 19,195 India-West Emeryville 15,800 Beirut Times Los Angeles 15,000 Asbarez Daily (Armenian) Glendale 12,000 Sereechai (Thai) Los Angeles 12,000 Free China Journal Los Angeles 11,000 Union Jack (British) La Mesa 10,000 Magyarok Vasarnapja (Hungarian) Thousand Oaks 8,000 Bien (Danish) Burbank 5,400 California Veckoblad (Swedish) Downey 5,000 Schweizer-Journal (Swiss) San Francisco 4,000 Irish News & Entertainment Glendale 3,000 Russian Life San Francisco 800

*--*

*Most publications don’t provide audited circulation figures.

*

Sources: Editor & Publisher yearbook, American Minorities Media

*

More Publications: ew California Media is a network of more than 200 ethnic publications thatruns the gamut from Advance Magazine, a bilingual (Spanish/English) publication to Yte, a Vietnamese monthly publication with an emphasis on health. The network’s members are listed at https://www.ncmonline.com/directory/.