The Herald will launch a new Spanish language weekly newspaper for the Puget Sound area in April.
La Raza de Noroeste (The people of the Northwest) will provide news and information to the area’s rapidly growing Spanish-speaking population, said Jorge Rivera, publisher of the new weekly.
La Raza will begin publication April 21, Rivera said.
Initially, 20,000 copies will be printed each week on The Herald’s presses in Everett. La Raza will be distributed free on Fridays throughout the Puget Sound area, primarily through Hispanic grocery stores and other retail outlets.
La Raza will focus primarily on first-generation immigrants and on the information they need to cope with life in America. “The people are the story,” Rivera said.
In addition to its Puget Sound-area staff, Rivera plans to hire writers in Mexico and South America to report on important events in the areas many of the new Northwest residents are from.
Rivera said about 300,000 Spanish-speaking residents live in the area, with about 80 percent coming from Mexico.
Herald publisher and chief executive Allen Funk said the new publication is an important business opportunity.
“It’s an extremely fast-growing market segment,” he said of Spanish speakers. “They are people who we have good reason to think are avid newspaper readers. … Advertisers say they are anxious to do business with someone who can deliver this audience on a regular basis.”
Funk said The Herald has grown in circulation in recent months, but that the newspaper industry as a whole is in decline. He said looking for niche publications such as La Raza is something The Herald will continue to do to boost business.
“Assuming this turns out well, we would continue to look for opportunities,” Funk said.
The Herald, which was a single business 12 years ago, now has a family of publications, including the Enterprise weekly news- papers in south Snohomish County, the monthly Snohomish County Business Journal, the Pickle Press advertising circular, and Heraldnet, an electronic publication on the Internet.
Rivera said he expects La Raza to be profitable by year’s end.
“We want to provide the business community and institutions with the best chance to communicate with the Hispanic community,” he said.
“But our main goal will be providing guidance to the Spanish-speaking population on how to adapt.”
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