One tenet of journalism is to provide a voice to the voiceless. We aim to do this every day at the Chicago Sun-Times.
But — with the exception of a few articles published online in Spanish over the years — we haven’t printed stories in any other language besides English.
So when our competitor announced it was shuttering Hoy, one of several key news voices for Spanish-speaking readers in our region, we got to thinking: Is there a way we can better serve the Latino community ourselves?
On Friday, Dec. 20, we’re going to give something a try.
That day, we’ll publish a Spanish-language section called “La Voz Chicago,” the voice. It will wrap your complete Sun-Times, as we’ve done with other special sections, including our “Stages” theater wraps.
La Voz will include a series of news and sports stories, most of which already have run in our newspaper, some of which haven’t. For example, we’ll reprint Carlos Ballesteros’ recent report about public school enrollment in Pilsen — an example of journalism at its best — and include a fresh column by Marlen Garcia about the 2020 presidential race. Those stories also will be published online in Spanish.
The idea is to test how our content appeals to Spanish-speaking readers and then reach out to stakeholders in the Latino community — and advertisers more generally — to see if there’s a product we can build sometime next year.
We know Univision, Telemundo, La Raza, the Daily Herald’s Reflejos newspaper and others all serve Spanish-speaking people, and we respect the work those news organizations do.
But the passing of Hoy seems like an opportunity for us to engage Latino readers, listen to what they want and potentially add a new voice into the mix.
As we figure things out, here’s one thing to note about you, our readers. You’re a diverse bunch. Our latest marketing data from this year showed our print and digital reach is 47% white, 29% black and 18% Latino.
Any way you slice it, we’re a newspaper that reflects the diversity of the entire Chicago region.
So look for La Voz on Friday. And thank you for your readership.
Nykia Wright
Interim CEO
Chris Fusco
Editor-in-Chief
