Bilingual News Programs Aims To Spotlight Issues Important To San Diego's Latino Population

Speaker 1: 00:00 The San Diego union Tribune is introducing a new voice in its coverage of Southern California. A video news magazine called new S provost. Today. It's a collaboration between the UT and the LA times to increase coverage and outreach to the region's Latino community. The creators of new escrow votes say the bilingual program will cover news entertainment and sports through video features and interviews, and it will be available on a variety of platforms from local television channels to the internet. Joining me now is one of the hosts of new Estrada voce today. Louis Cruz and Louis. Welcome. Thank you very much, Maureen. There are already Spanish language, television news programs in Southern California. What do you think is missing that this program wants to provide? I Speaker 2: 00:49 Think what will make this show unique is that it will bring stories not only in English, but also in Spanish and a little bit of Spanglish, which is the way a lot of us communicate at home or with our friends. Uh, and also the fact that we are using the resources of the Los Angeles times and the union Tribune. So we're, we're happy to have, uh, all of those resources and all of those great reporters and journalists. Uh, we'll also be interviewing, uh, LA times and union Tribune, journalists and staff photographers, so that readers and viewers can get to know who is writing or documenting these stories about the Latino community in Southern California and the border region. How was the bilingual Speaker 1: 01:31 Broadcast actually going to work? Will there be some time? So right Speaker 2: 01:36 Now we do have subtitles in a lot of our pre-produced packages. However, our reporters obviously interview a lot of people in both languages. Um, and we are planning to just air the language. Uh, the Spanish language portions as is if we don't have time to add subtitles to them, we're assuming that, uh, most of our viewers that are interested in this content can understand English Spanish. And, uh, and then as I mentioned, we'll even throw in a little bit of Spanglish in there because we tend to go back and forth. Now you're Speaker 1: 02:12 Calling new escrow, VOSA a weekly news magazine. So how would you describe it? Is it like 60 minutes? Speaker 2: 02:20 You know, I'd like to think of it as a local 60 minutes, uh, type of, uh, news magazine. Uh, right now we are starting off once a month. Uh, we premiered, uh, this past Sunday on July 18th, but it'll start airing on the first Sunday of the month throughout the rest of the year. And then after that, we'll reevaluate the situation and see if we can add to the frequency. But yes, I would love to eventually see it as a, a weekly half hour news program. The first Speaker 1: 02:48 Episode has already aired. Can you give us some of the highlights of the first new estro Vose Morrissey? Speaker 2: 02:54 The union Tribune is immigration reporter did a long series on the us asylum, uh, where she traveled to central America and, uh, documented some stories, people that were returned back to central America. And so she led off our first segment. We also had Gustabo Adriano did a whole series on Fernando Valanzuela, incredible rise of 40 years ago in major league baseball. The series is called Fernando mania at 40 our lead photo journalist or the a hundred Tomayo who is really leading the charge in terms of a lot of the shooting of the show, but also editing the show and a profiled from muralists in Barrio, Logan and Andrea Lopez, the Affinia who, uh, covers communities for the union Tribune look back at Salina. It would have been her 50th birthday this year, had she still been alive. And then we also encourage people to sign up for our Latin X files, a newsletter, which is written by Fidel Martinez out of the Los Angeles times. And of course, videos from the LA times and union Tribune, food sections, uh, food is a big part of our culture, so that will definitely be in the show. And then of course, the LA times in Espanol, as well as the LA times and union Tribune and union Tribune and Espanol, we cover a lot of entertainment. So we hope to add a lot of, uh, entertainment, uh, stories as well. Speaker 1: 04:14 Louis, you must've done a lot of research into the kinds of news available and geared to the Latino population in Southern California. So what grade would you give San Diego news coverage in general in serving the region's Latino population? Speaker 2: 04:30 That's a very good question because that also requires, uh, looking at what we've done. We, uh, have actually at the union Tribune have an internal committee that meets weekly I Latino, uh, coverage committee, where we talk about some of the stories that are related to the Latino audience. And again, the reporters, uh, and the photographers and the people working on these stories don't necessarily need to be, uh, Latinos. These are just stories that may be of interest to Latinos, but we're seeing more and more at least within our organization, more of a focus on, on definitely. And, and, and being intentional about, uh, tackling, um, stories that are important to the Latino community. So you are Speaker 1: 05:16 The co-host of this program. You have a, another host that is going to be presenting new aspect of us. What are you hoping to bring to these broadcasts? Speaker 2: 05:26 So I created the show and rested I was today. Uh, it was actually an idea I had about two years ago when I worked for the, the LA times and was, uh, up in LA helping to launch LA times today. And when I came back to the union Tribune, uh, about two years ago, um, talked about it with our editor and publisher Jeff flight, and he just thought it was a great idea and said, let's do it. And then of course COVID hit. So that stalled our plans a little bit, but now that we're coming out of the, here we are, uh, it's been launched. And, uh, and we're hoping to, uh, again, highlight, uh, the coverage and, uh, the initiatives of the San Diego union Tribune and the Los Angeles times. And of course, um, introduce our audience to the reporters and staff photographers, uh, who are writing and documenting these stories about the Latino community in Southern California and, uh, the border region. Speaker 2: 06:24 Fortunately for me, I'm also, co-hosting the show with, uh, [inaudible] John Bell, who I had the pleasure of working with at channel 10, uh, here in San Diego at 10 news and, um, where she had a similar role, uh, as the community relations manager, she's our current community relations manager. And, uh, so we're working together on, uh, former forming partnerships with the community, but also again, um, bringing attention and highlighting and showcasing the work that our colleagues do day in and day out in the newsroom. Where can people see new Estrada votes? You can watch the rest that I've post today on Cox cable, uh, it's available in San Diego. It's also up north in Santa Barbara, orange county, Palos Verdes, Palm Springs, and east, uh, over to Yuma Arizona. So we're excited about, uh, being able to touch on a lot of the areas that, that we cover. Uh, people can also watch it on our website, San Diego union tribune.com/nuestra, hyphen Voss hyphen today. Or you can just Google and rest it up most today, San Diego union Tribune, and the page will come up. It's also on our YouTube channel and we'll also, uh, put segments up on our social media pages as well. We also have sections on our websites of both the union Tribune and the LA times called Latino life. And so you'll also find links there as well. Well, congratulations Speaker 1: 07:52 Had been speaking with Louis Cruz. He is co-host of the new program, new Western provost today. And thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Maureen. I appreciate it.