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By JULIAN DO<\/p>\n
Speaker Robert Rivas, Senate Leader Monique Lim\u00f3n, Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, and Sen. John Laird: By continuing to ignore our ethnic and local newsrooms, you are effectively saying that you can govern a state without communicating with the people who elected you.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what\u2019s at stake without the modest $35 million investment earmarked for two programs that support news outlets serving immigrants and communities of color: the Propel Initiative and the California Local News Fellowship.<\/p>\n
These programs are not subsidies for an industry in trouble. They are investments in sustaining California\u2019s vital and vibrant information infrastructure \u2014 one that ensures that all our diverse communities have visibility and a voice in the public square.<\/p>\n
You cannot claim to champion equity, safety, or community resilience while leaving the state\u2019s most vulnerable populations unprotected because the state\u2019s emergency alerts and resource information cannot reach them.<\/p>\n
We are seeing the catastrophic cost of this communication breakdown right now.<\/p>\n
In Riverside County, the massive Shore Fire is tearing through thousands of acres, forcing mandatory evacuations, shutting down major highways, and sending thick plumes of smoke across the Inland Empire. We cannot afford to repeat the tragedy of the 2025 Eaton Fire, which engulfed Altadena and displaced thousands of ethnic residents, exposing serious gaps in how emergency information reaches vulnerable communities.<\/p>\n
A huge percentage of the families living in the direct path of these fast-moving wildfires belong to Black, Latino, Asian American, Native American, and immigrant communities. When an emergency strikes, the state\u2019s centralized, English-centric alert systems often fail these isolated populations. The government simply does not possess the infrastructure to communicate with them directly in their languages or within their cultural contexts.<\/p>\n
Forty-four percent of California households speak languages other than English, and over 7 million people in the state speak little or no English or say they don\u2019t speak it \u201cvery well.\u201d Further, 30 million Californians rely on ethnic news outlets for news and culturally relevant information, according to the latest audit by our organization.<\/p>\n
These are the millions who depend on ethnic media to find out how to access healthcare, immigration assistance, voting, and other critical information, including emergency alerts and post-disaster resources.<\/p>\n
Yet, back in Sacramento, a devastating pattern is playing out. When community media leaders try to communicate the urgent needs of their audiences, they are too often met with a wall of silence. When those who control the state\u2019s purse strings turn a deaf ear, a toxic breakdown occurs. Eventually, these ethnic media reporters stop knocking on doors that refuse to open, giving up on a state government that seems to have given up on them.<\/p>\n
Isolated communities, however, don\u2019t disappear. They are left stranded in an informational vacuum.<\/p>\n
It is time for leadership to fundamentally alter how they view ethnic and community newsrooms. We are not a struggling business sector looking for a charitable handout. We operate on a currency that no government agency can buy or manufacture through an AI algorithm: deep trust built over generations.<\/p>\n
This vital lifeline and information infrastructure cannot continue to run on trust alone; it requires structural public-private investment. A coalition of community media leaders is urging Sacramento to secure a comprehensive $35 million local news budget request before the final budget files are closed this June.<\/p>\n
This unified package allocates $15 million for the California Local News Fellowship and the Propel initiative \u2014 led by the Maynard Institute, American Community Media, California Black Media, and Latino Media Collaborative \u2014 to stabilize community newsrooms.<\/p>\n
The goal of this funding extends far beyond sustaining the media sector; it is a vital effort to equip ethnic and local community outlets with the necessary tools to keep underserved populations informed, safe, and civically active.<\/p>\n
We urge Speaker Rivas, Senate Leader Lim\u00f3n, Assemblymember Gabriel, and Sen. Laird, the state legislative leadership, to look at the fires on the ground, stand behind California\u2019s ethnic and local community newsrooms, and fund a communications infrastructure that connects the government with the governed.<\/p>\n
Julian Do is co-director of American Community Media, where he focuses on media industry advocacy, local news capacity building, sustainability opportunities, and special campaigns including inter-ethnic relations, COVID-19 pandemic misinformation, and journalism awards events. Opinions expressed in Vox Populi are not necessarily those of The Rafu Shimpo.<\/p>\n
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