2005 Annual Report - Ethnic Media Newsroom Investment

As the nation's immigrant population grows, it seems almost certain that the universe of the ethnic media will continue to expand. The growth, however, is likely to be anything but uniform. The many different ethnic media that already exist in the U.S. are likely to grow in their own different directions and at their own different paces.

And even within those ethnic communities there is diversity in what different outlets provide. The content of the ethnic newspapers we examined varied greatly. Some were focused largely on news from readers' home countries; others were more like mainstream newspapers simply printed in a different language. The papers face unique challenges. They are charged with two missions at once, providing readers with news about their old homes and about their new one. How the papers handle those missions will ultimately have a large impact on how the nation's new immigrants come to understand U.S. culture and government and their place in their new country.

Economically speaking, the ethnic media are operating on at least two tracks: The small-scale, local business model of most ethnic media and the large-scale national model of some of the Spanish-language press. Unlike the media of other ethnic groups, the Hispanic media have audiences large enough to lead to the formation of fledgling newspaper chains and national broadcast networks. It's not clear when or whether other ethnicities, with smaller populations, will be able to follow that growth path.

One great unknown in the discussion of the ethnic media is how U.S. government policy will affect immigration, and ultimately the next generation of ethnic media readers, listeners and viewers. Extremely strict limitations could affect the growth in ethnic outlets.

But even with government restrictions, it seems likely the ethnic media will continue to grow to some extent because they represent larger trends in the media and the broader culture: segmentation and personalization. These outlets provide a product to ethnic groups that they can't get elsewhere.