Nobody wants to be reminded how tough these days are. Fewer ads. Money dribbles in.
So jobs are cut and work is harder, incredibly harder.
The plans you had to do more and to do better are now just plans.
The ethnic news media has always lived on less than the mainstream news media. But now less is even less.
That’s one reason why sticking together and helping each other makes so much sense.
And that’s why we are holding a fundraiser at 8 p.m. Thursday (July 1) at the Heartland Cafe to raise money for journalists who’ve lost jobs and are trying to start over.
The Chicago Headline Club is the host and there will be musicians, all of them journalists, playing.
The money will go to help freelancers covers the costs for working on stories, or for classes to help get a better feet in the door for the next job or for equipment such as digital tape recorders.
If you know anyone who has lost a job these days, you know how hard it is to recover. And if you have lost a job, you know this routine too well.
Besides raising money, we’ll talk, hopefully, about ways to help people make better connections and ask folks, as well, who may want to volunteer classes or support services for those of us starting our journalism careers over.
We are asking for a $10 contribution if you have it.
I want to also remind you that the Headline Club has $10,000 set aside in its Watchdog Fund for news outlets that want to do investigative journalism and need the money for equipment or copying costs or local travel. There’s no better recipient for this money than the ethnic news media. So, contact me if you want more information about this fund and I’ll see you Thursday night. If you want to know how you can apply for the money raised Thursday, contact me as well.
If you can’t make it, you can donate to the Chicago Headline Club Foundation, at 1633 Central St., Evanston, Ill, and mark down that the money goes for the Scribe Aid fundraiser.
Here’s an innovative way to find revenue from a very innovative community non-profit media outlet, the Twin Cities Planet., one of the handful of ethnic and community news hubs around the country.
This is an article from J-Labs, click on the link to read the rest:
When Twin Cities Daily Planet founder Jeremy Iggers approached a local sushi chef about helping support his site with a half-price gift certificate deal, the chef at first didn’t bite.
A large social deal-making site, Groupon, had already approached Koyi Sushi Too, but its chef feared that too many customers might present certificates and overwhelm his restaurant. A few weeks earlier another local restaurant was involved in a similar deal: It sold 5,000 gift certificates – and then had to deliver on $200,000 worth of food.
Koyi’s chef wanted to attract attention to the store’s new location, but wasn’t sure he could handle a customer onslaught.
“We’re local and we’re a nonprofit and those things appealed to him,” Iggers said of his site, which was launched with J-Lab funding in 2005.
How Social Deal-Making Sites Work
The social deal-making business model promises deals better than half-off for consumers, more customers for local businesses and, of course, considerable returns for the industry and their backers.
Here’s an example of how it works: For one day, customers can buy a $40 gift certificate to a restaurant for only $20. Of that $20, the local partner gets $10 (typiclly half the revenue) – and the deal company keeps the rest. So the business is giving away $30 of food per certificate and is banking on a combination of customers (a) eating more than $40 worth of food when they come in, (b) enjoying the food so much they come back and (c) forgetting to use the gift certificate entirely, in which case the business just pocketed $10.
After some thinking, the chef gave Iggers’ idea a shot, and in June 2010 the restaurant became the first Daily Planet Deal of the Day. Customers could buy $35 gift certificates to his restaurant for just $15. He and the site then shared in the coupon revenue: 60 percent for him, 40 for the Daily Planet.
Over the first two weeks, the Twin City Daily Planet sold fewer than 100 deals to the restaurant, a more reasonable number for the chef to accommodate.
But of even greater importance for the Twin Cities Daily Planet and news sites like it is that, in the first two weeks of the program, the revenue from local business deals surpassed traditional advertising sales, Iggers said.
Iggers did not want to disclose exact revenue numbers, but his deals hold promise for opening up at least a small revenue stream for community news sites. Consider that if a community site were to sell seven different $15 coupon deals a month to 100 people each, it might bring in $4,200. After paying an ad salesperson a 20 percent commission, the site could net $3,360.
The Daily Planet Back Story
“I think a lot of advertisers prefer this kind of deal to display ads because with those ads you never know how effective they are.” – IggersIggers and his sales manager Yvonne Hundshamer had been looking for another way to bring in revenue, aside from banner and tile ads – an issue community news sites often struggle with daily. So they put into practice the deals idea floated by Michael Skolar as a fellow at the Reynolds Journalism Institute. He spent a year studying the future of news and hypothesized that local sites could, through coupon deals, leverage their audiences and provide meaningful connections for advertisers.
The street caught my eye a dozen years ago. An Uptown street waiting to be shipped out. A street full of poor people whose airless apartments would be turned into gleaming new condos.
One by one this is what happened, leaving only one building but now there’s a sign on the gate saying that it’s days are numbered too.
Where do these people go?
That’s what takes me to the Chicago Housing Authority’s announcement that it is opening its waiting list for the first time in over a decade. Forty-thousand families can see their lives changed.
Who are these people who will be rushing to sign up between now and July 9. Where do they live? And what happens if they can’t find housing? And how has the economic collapse changed the housing realities for Chicago’s poor? For the worse, I imagine.
This is a theme of stories that I can see played out over weeks or one solid page. It is a story about neighborhoods, many of them Latino or Black, many of them filled with newly arrived refugees and immigrants. It is a story that the ethnic news media can tell with all of its heart.
Steve
Pictures flash by. He is dead. He is dead too. A crushing family legacy of loss.
The picture of the street outside her door appears darkly fearsome. She worries, she says, as she goes out on the street.
But Amber Ellis’ message is that she is a survivor, a believer, a person with a foot on future’s up escalator.
Check her video, above. It’s a powerful story told with even greater strength when you appreciate the story-telling quality of this sophomore from Gary Comer College Prep.
She is one of dozens who’ve benefited in the last decade from the work of Free Spirit Media, a youth media development program that works with youngsters at five Chicago schools. http://www.freespiritmedia.org/
And they are one of 11 youth programs that belong to the Chicago Youth Voices Network, a unique and inspiring collection hard to find anywhere on this globe. http://cyvn.org/
The gift of Free Spirit Media, beyond its being there, is its belief, as founder Jeff McCarter explains, of helping youths to tell their stories in their own voices.
And Amber’s, as he says, is about loss and about maybe being the last one standing, but standing up nonetheless to live a life fulfilled.
This is a story that could easily fit into whatever you are writing about this summer in terms of teens and violence and the positive steps being taken to deal with this tragedy. If you need help connecting with any of the programs, or putting together a package of stories, I’d gladly help out.
So, too, if you have any you want to showcase or pass along, please do so. Steve@newstips.org
The Guatemalans are little slower, little less organized but they are doing well. So, are the Salvadorans. But the Nigerians move the ball so well. Really well.
But here come the Serbians, pouring out of their cars and onto the field.
This is our World Cup, the Chicago is the World cup, played daily here on silky green fields and no fields and on dreams and by players who began so many years and countries ago that only blurred memories remain.
This is how you should consider covering the World Cup in the weeks to come while the other cup flows on in South Africa. This is the time for the ethnic new media to celebrate a truly global bond here in Chicago.
Pick a team. Pick a country. We have lots of both here.
Tell us the stories of how the teams started, how they are playing, how they are winning and how the crowds, who cram the sidelines, feel about futbol or soccer of whatever they call it here and back home.
Remind us how much we liked the game there and how much we are bound to it here in our new or old homes. Show us their team shirts and team celebrations. Do it now while the fever is rising.
If you have doubts, read Oscar Avila’s wonderful story in Sunday Trib. It should inspire.
And if you have pictures or stories that you would like to share here, please send them so we can compare.
Steve
Ever wonder why your elected officials in Washington,D.C. speak for so many people in so many neighborhoods?
Wonder why there’s not always a district that brings together people from the same community?
Those are important questions and they will be become even more as the redistricting takes place. And this is one of the most important issues for immigrant and minority communities’ news media.
That is also why you don’t want to miss a training sessions, sponsored by the McCormick Foundation, on June 17 and 18th. The sign-up dates have been extended so don’t worry about the deadline on the firm. It’s listed here and if you have any questions contact me, Steve Franklin, steve@newstips.org, 773 595-8667
By Angela Evans
Tucked between a sprawl of Devon Avenue stores, and obscured by the bustle of life in the heart of Chicago’s Indian-Pakistani community, are the modest offices of Sandesh Publications.
But except for the cramped offices nothing has been modest about what happens here.
Hemant Brahmbhatt,48, is the publisher behind Chicago’s division of the major publishing company based in India. Brahmbhatt is the man behind the plan, a business- tried and true.
This business of his, or rather, that he has been an active participant of for the past 16 years is the publishing industry. That is only taking into account his experience in Chicago.
The soft-spoken Brahmbhatt was introduced to the business by family friends who ran Sandesh publications in India. His primary duties included all graphics and images, as well as writing- which he produced for 12 years prior to his voyage here.
Seeking a new opportunity in America, Brahmbhatt found it. He knew there was a large Gujarati-speaking Indian population in Chicago. So he decided to cater to that, obtaining permission to run a weekly version of India’s daily Sandesh newspaper.
It was granted to him, and thus began Brahmbhatt’s foray into ethnic publishing. The Sandesh paper, printed in Gujarati, has been a successful staple in local publishing for nearly 15 years, amassing 17,000 subscribers.
But the more ambitious venture is it is hi INDiA,weekly which considers itself as the only local paper catering to more modern, English- speaking Indians and Pakistanis who are interested in what is happening within their own communities here in the Chicago area.
The paper is positioned as a choice to some of the older publications who are more interested in what’s going on back home.
This is what, according to Brahmbhatt, makes hi INDiA fresh and different.
hi INDiA , which is nearly a year old, prints 20,000 copies of the paper per issue. They go to press every Tuesday, distributing the paper throughout Chicago and nearby surrounding suburbs- even on into St. Louis, Indiana and Milwaukee. This extensive reach further propels hi INDiA ahead of many of its competitors.
The paper covers a range of topics from the political to the humane, compiling editorial content from its staff of three in house writers and other contributors. Hi INDiA also subscribes to wire services from India and INS News, printing top international stories. The bulk of the paper’s content, though, are the stories taking place in Chicago’s Indian-Paki community. That is what Brahmbhatt believes that people want to read.
Another unique feature of hi INDiA is online accessibility. The newspaper is available in its entirety on each Thursday following publication. Brahmbhatt emphasizes how convenient this is for the businessmen who want to read the paper. They do not frequently have time to spend at a local grocer where they might pick up a copy, so an online version of the paper provides them with an easy alternative. The website averages an impressive 15,000 hits per week.
While the reader interest might be there, winning advertisers’ support is a more difficult battle.
But that is the challenge facing ethnic media in any community
“It’s a very tough market,” he said. “Indian TV channels nowadays are very, very popular- so most of the corporate advertisers go with the TV. But still we survive by the local advertisers.”
The paper is otherwise personally financed. Brahmbhatt explained that even when advertisers don’t pay on time (or at all), the paper is a business and they will always go to print. But it is a challenging task to pay for print, and this economy hasn’t made things any easier.
“In the last 15 years I have never seen this type of economy run like this.”
Conversely, hi INDiA appeals to advertisers because of its reach beyond Chicago.
And this smaller scale of outreach is just a glimpse of Brahmbhatt’s vision to eventually turn the paper into a daily. And not just a daily paper in the Midwest, but also in New York. But not just in New York, “I want to open hi INDiA in each and every city,” says Brahmbhatt.
“This is a business,” Brahmbhatt says. “This is what I did in India and what I do here. It is my passion….I could go into another business, but I decided to go into this business because I know this business and I can feed my family. This is business- so I like that.”
If the number of readers is any indication so far, they seem to like this business too.
Angela Evans is an intern with the Community Media Workshop
When was that law passed? And what does it say? Don’t know. Well, you have the Internet as your answer and here are my best suggestions for searching information for free on the Internet.
If you know others or especially in other languages, please let me know;.
Internet search connections
http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory
http://www.infospace.com
http://www.dogpile.com
http://www.metasearch.com
For sources and updates—also Google and Yahoo alerts
Chicago’s Polish community is extensive. In order to bring local and international news to the community, Magda Partyka, News Director for WNWI 1080AM of Polsat International 2, delivers relevant programming and breaking news coverage. Magda discusses the goals of her radio station, as well as the challenges the Polish community faces. For more information on Polish ethnic media, please visit: www.informacjeUSA.com. Camera Operator: Naomi Kothbauer, Columbia College intern at Community Media Workshop, Editor: Matthew J. Lacy, Columbia College student.
The flavor is by chance. The moment is now. The topics are international. El café esta caliente.
Alejandro Riera, editor in chief of Café Media, LLC explains that his company, along with the rest of the media landscape, is undergoing a transition.
Literally, so. But, in this case, it was a good transition.
The modest, urban offices of Café Media were to be relocated the coming week to a larger space. They needed more room because of the growth of the company, which got its start two years ago as pretty much of a risky bet.
Café Media was born amid an economic recession, countering financial adversity and onlookers’ doubts. Nowadays, however, it is going strong and focused as ever on its original target.
“Café media was created with the intention of providing content to an under-served segment of the Hispanic population,” says Riera.
“The reality is that in the last 10-15 years those of us who work in the Hispanic market have done an excellent job pushing Spanish language media. That is newspapers, radio, television– but there’s this growing number of 1st, 2nd, 3rd generation Hispanics born in the US, raised in the US, who have a strong foothold in both their paternal and maternal cultures back in Latin America and their Latin American culture in the US. There’s very little media that addresses those needs in English,” he says.
Café Media seeks to address those needs, and perhaps even establish a model for how to do so. Though the print magazine is Café’s primary media vehicle, Riera, 45, explains that the company has truly become a multi-level platform for modern Hispanic media.
The first issue of the magazine was published in October 2008. It is published bi-monthly with 45,000 copies in circulation. While 25,000 of those copies are distributed throughout Chicagoland and nearby suburbs, the other 20,000 are mail subscriptions. These subscribers are primarily based in Chicago, LA, Houston and New York.
Café wants to engage Latino readers with the issues currently impacting their lives and that of the Hispanic community through a myriad of means. There is online content available to Café’s community of readers, including features and articles from the magazine, blogs for different days of the week, reviews, recommended videos and more.
Café utilizes social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to foster dialogue with and amongst readers. And there are also “Pick Up Parties” hosted to release their latest print copy of the magazine directly into its readers’ hands.
Increasing their web presence was one of Café Media’s primary successes. Because the economy was just beginning to decline when the company began, advertisers were tightening their budgets, and not as willing to risk investing in a product that wasn’t a sure bet.
“Our big challenge was to convince them of the viability of this particular target audience, and the viability of the magazine. That being said that crisis, the economic crisis that we faced early last year forced us to rethink our company structure…and it behooved us to seriously start exploring how to exploit our digital capabilities.”
Things have changed since Alejandro Riera began his foray into publishing, a career he says chose him rather than the other way around. Riera wanted to work in Hispanic television, and was noticed early on by an editor from the Tribune who approached him for ideas after seeing his work with English and Spanish programming on Chicago’s Access Network. Thus began Riera’s career with the Tribune.
Riera later began freelancing for Exito before they hired him on, and eventually held a senior manager role for each division of Hoy.
Riera was excited to step out of his comfort zone, telling stories the way they have also been told in Spanish media, when he jumped on board with Café Media a few months after it was a functioning company birthed from the mind of Julian Posada.
He describes himself as a creature of the moment, and one who bores easily. He felt confident enough in Café Media’s ability to deliver, albeit comments from people questioning the sanity of his decision.
Riera says he likes to tackle the projects right in front of him before moving on to the next thing. And the next thing for Café Media this following year looks a lot like expansion.
Indeed, they have already taken small steps towards this.
Because the content is broad enough to garner national interest, Riera doesn’t see why something in the magazine wouldn’t be of interest to one person or another. And so, he wants to keep tapping into stories from places outside of Chicago, growing both readership and advertisers.
As for himself, Riera, who clearly believes the possibilities ahead for his company, asks, “Myself? Well, I say how far can I go with this?”
And for now, he plans to keep trekking forward- no end in sight.
Angela Evans is an intern with the Community Media Workshop
