Los Angeles County Supervisors Vote on November 10 to Study Expanded Advertising Through Local, Ethnic and Community Media: County CEO to Report Back in 120 Days
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California — Los Angeles County supervisors voted on November 10 to study the feasibility of increasing advertising and public outreach efforts through local, ethnic and community media outlets, in an effort to better communicate with the county diverse residents while also supporting smaller journalism organizations.
The motion was introduced by Supervisors Hilda Solis and Janice Hahn. It states that effective government communication requires more than producing information, and requires reaching residents through the sources they trust, in the languages they understand and in the communities where they live, and that strengthening coordination with local, ethnic, community and hyperlocal media organizations can help the county better reach residents who may not be effectively served through traditional government communications channels.
According to the motion, New York City adopted a policy five years ago requiring that at least 50 percent of its advertising funds go to community and ethnic media, following an analysis that found most of that city advertising money was spent on larger, mainstream outlets, with only 4 percent spent on Spanish-language publications despite Latinos representing nearly 30 percent of the city population.
The motion states that Los Angeles County, with more than 10 million residents across 88 cities and unincorporated areas, must communicate with residents across a vast and diverse geographic area, and that county departments regularly communicate about health care, public benefits, housing, immigration services, public safety, disaster response and other essential services.
The motion calls for the county chief executive to report back in 120 days on the feasibility of creating a framework for increasing advertising and outreach funding through localized media outlets.
Solis said after the vote that local and ethnic media are critical to providing crucial information to specific neighborhoods, reporting in the languages residents speak, covering the neighborhoods they know and bringing attention to issues that might otherwise go unreported.
Solis and Hahn also noted in the motion that 12,000 local journalism jobs have been lost in the state since 2002. Hahn said the county should advertise with the local media outlets and small papers residents already depend on and trust, and that the advertising dollars would be a lifeline for small newsrooms.
Source: Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 洛杉矶县行政厅（Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration）入口。（Visitor7 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons）
