North County Times' Latino Roundtable: 10 Years of Community Presence in the Media

When people talk face to face, the possibility of forging sound, respectful relationships grows. When people from the newspaper are allowed to participate, the power of that conversation can be magnified and sent rippling through our neighborhoods. Healthy communities can be created and a better society built.

The North County Times formed its Latino Roundtable about 10 years ago, shortly after the creation of this roughly 90,000 circulation daily newspaper serving northern San Diego County and southwest Riverside County.

Bobby Rivera, a Latino active in local politics, approached Publisher Dick High to suggest that it would be a good thing to have a monthly forum for members of the Latino community to sit down and talk with the newspaper – an institution that was viewed with anger and suspicion by many in the Latino community.

The monthly sessions were, and continue to be, open to all interested – of Hispanic ethnicity or not. (They are set for 8:30 a.m. on the last Wednesday of the month in the paper’s Oceanside conference room. You are invited, if you’re in the neighborhood.)

The rules are simple: Anyone interested in attending is welcome. The roundtable belongs to the community members present not the newspaper’s staff; we do not set the agenda. Participants are welcome to raise any topics or issues they wish. The conversation is “off the record” – in this case meaning that what is said in the room stays in the room. The conversation may be mined for story ideas and follow ups, but only on an on-the-record basis later.

Usually, the newspaper’s top management – the publisher, managing editor and I – are present. Assigning desk editors and reporters are frequent visitors.

In the beginning, the sessions were often heated, community members bringing their anger towards a newspaper they believed was unresponsive.

As time passed, trust grew. And with the increasing trust, the newspaper’s ability to deliver coverage that makes a difference grew, too.

People offered the criticism that we needed to do a better job covering local schools, including the unique problems English language learners face. That suggestion became part of the rationale to shrink the number of police reporters and to grow the number of school reporters.

When the roundtable discussion explored the unintended consequences of the looming California high school exit exam on dropout rates and, particularly, how the test would be likely to push more Latino youths out of school, the conversation became a spur. It led us to a series on “The Great Divide” between academic performance between native English speakers and those struggling to learn English and the hardships the test would create. We heard that the series became at least a part of the state discussion and helped foster a decision to delay the text until May 2006.

Editors at the North County Times also responded with the creation of a Road to College (an online version may be found at http://www.nctimes.com/special_reports/road/) supplement in both English and Spanish. The project has been updated and inserted twice for all newspaper subscribers and a 60,000 copy overrun distributed to local schools, service clubs and interested organizations.

Others urged coverage of and sensitivity to cultural events, celebrations and holidays – those stories began to be regularly assigned: The annual Fiesta Del Barrio Carlsbad; Dia de los Muertos celebrations; the Oaxacan festival in at Cal State San Marcos University; Cesar Chavez’s birthday recognition, and many others.

The conversation shared at these roundtables has moved from simply sharing criticism and story ideas to building other institutions.

For instance, when a group of Hispanic men was challenged by Ophelia Escobedo, a Carlsbad market owner and member of a North County Latinas, to do something positive for the often overlooked Latino boys, the men responded by forming Encuentros, a non-profit dedicated to teaching Latino boys the value of their cultural heritage and a good education.

That non-profit is working on its third annual career day for Latino boys (it hosted close to 600 young men on a Saturday last October) and has sponsored two pilot courses designed to inspire and mentor young Latino males in Vista and San Marcos middle schools.

The roundtable has spawned a second monthly session on the other side of our market (one in the morning, the other in the evening). It has spurred us to create an African-American roundtable, as well.

For 10 years, these shared conversations have helped build a community.