“There has never been a time when Latino media wasn’t in crisis,” write the founding members of the Latino Media Consortium. Over 64 million Latinos live in the U.S. They’re served by just 558 media organizations by one estimate — though it’s difficult to say with any certainty, since the disappearance of Latino news outlets often flies under the radar during analyses of the nation’s local news landscape.

“Is it any wonder then, why Latinos are so misunderstood, disenfranchised, and hard to reach?” the consortium’s authors wonder.

The consortium, announced by founders Amanda Zamora and Lucy Flores, is made up of nine Latino media operators: El Tecolote, Conecta Arizona, Enlace Latino NC, Pulso, LatinaMediaCo, Palabra (NAHJ), Luz Media, Agencia Media, and The Latino Newsletter.

The group announced its launch last week to foster a digital-first Latino media ecosystem that ensures widespread access to community-driven stories that don’t frame Latino communities as monolithic. 

“We have to do this together, this is the only option — that is the only way in which this is going to work if we come together and collectively, you know, move towards something equitable that this community deserves,” co-founder Lucy Flores told The Objective.

The consortium’s founding also signals a broader trend toward journalistic cooperation, rather than competition — take the founding of the recent Movement Media Alliance, for example. For the Latino Media Consortium, a priority is uniting around more equitable fund redistribution: Newsrooms, particularly those serving BIPOC communities, are striving toward sustainability in a funding landscape where investments in BIPOC media are dwarfed by those in big tech.

Consortium members are aiming to raise $100 million over five years to “fund over 100+ Latino media operators with transformational grants of direct operating funds,” with 10% of the money reserved for sustainability solutions for consortium members.

While the Press Forward initiative has united philanthropic foundations to invest at least $500 million into the local news landscape — and its initial round focused on undercovered communities — the consortium is an example of communities organizing to meet their own needs: “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.

Read more about the Latino Media Consortium on their website and find this story on The Objective, along with a Q&A with co-founder Lucy Flores about the necessity of the consortium’s work in supporting democracy.

—James Salanga

Logic(s) Magazine opens Palestinian Journalist Fellowship: Formed in collaboration with the Arab Reform Initiative, the fellowship will support “community-led storytelling on Palestine and its relationship to technology.” Four Palestinian journalists will receive a $20,000 stipend. While the fellowship is open to any Palestinian journalist, priority is given to early-career applicants currently located in Palestine or refugee camps, and/or have recently been displaced. The priority deadline to apply is Oct. 16. Read about the fellowship and apply in Logic(s) Magazine.

Baltimore Sun fires reporter questioning coverage standards under new Sinclair ownership: Madeleine O’Neill, the newspaper’s federal courts reporter, told the Baltimore Brew she has “no regrets” and is proud of her reporting at the Sun. Hired in April — and without full union protection since she was still in her nine-month probationary period — O’Neill had been vocal via Slack about what she saw as declining journalistic standards. Read the story in the Baltimore Brew, the Baltimore Sun Guild’s press release on X, and a recap of ownership changes in NPR. 

AI bots replace newscasters at a Hawaiian local news outlet: The Garden Island, a newspaper covering the Hawaiian island of Kauai, is the first outlet in the U.S. to adopt the technology from Caledo. The Israeli company designed the platform to analyze prewritten news articles and turn them into a “live” broadcast helmed by AI hosts. The “hosts” — James and Rose, who still struggle to pronounce some Hawaiian words — haven’t been received well by Garden Island audiences. Read the story in WIRED. 

Media leaders, philanthropists raise $15M for new local news newsroom in L.A.: The initiative — largely backed by the American Journalism Project — rests on the feedback of over 900 L.A. residents and over 2 years of research. The newsroom, now seeking editorial leaders, will launch and operate community publications similar to the Boyle Heights Beat in undercovered areas, start an L.A. Documenters program, and partner with newsrooms to share coverage. (Some of the money is going toward LAist and CalMatters’ investigative teams.) Among those on its board: Kevin Merida and Monica Lozano. Read the story in Axios.

Ahead of upcoming U.S. Supreme Court session, Law360 editorial workers go on strike: Unionized workers at the digital news site, owned by LexisNexis, started an open-ended unfair labor practice strike on Sept. 10 after Law360 failed to meet the union’s healthcare and salary demands for their second contract. The union and publication have been negotiating for over 2 years and authorized a ULP strike with a 96% vote last month. Read the press release in NewsGuild, see the strike publication at Outlaw360 and find the strike fund on GoFundMe.

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