Some stories the Latin Advertising, Marketing and Media world are talking about this week.
» Nascar’s Spanish Broadcast
Nascar has reached an agreement with Fox Deportes, the Spanish-language cable sports channel, to broadcast 15 races starting in February. The agreement includes the broadcast of six live races, including the Daytona 500, which will be broadcast in Spanish for the first time, the New York Times Media decoder reports.
» Hispanic are the largest college Minority
Hispanics are now the largest minority group at four-year colleges in the U.S., and comprise 25 percent of the nation's public elementary school students, according to analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center. The report, "Hispanic Student Enrollments Reach New Highs in 2011," written by Richard Fry and Mark Hugo Lopez, shows the number of 18- to 24-year-old Hispanics enrolled in college exceeded 2 million and reached a record 16.5 percent share of all college enrollments. Hispanics have been the country's largest minority group on four-year and two-year college campuses since 2010.
» Guatemala’s Plaza Publica
The Nieman Lab reports about Plaza Publica, a university backed site tries to cover what it says other media organizations ignore. According to Nieman Lab’s Antonio Jimenez its not uncommon for news sites in the United States to evolve into a series of verticals: technology, politics, celebrity news, sports, and the like. In Guatemala, Plaza Pública is also built around a series of verticals. But here, they’re equity, environment, social cohesion, cultural diversity, and corruption. “We audit the private sector as part of our mandate,” site director Martín Rodríguez-Pellecer told Jimenez. “Traditional media does not cover these issues because they’re afraid companies would remove ads.” Plaza Pública stands out for a few other reasons. It’s a digital native, but reluctant to set its pace against the 24-hour news cycle. It’s mainly funded by a private university, but it’s seeking a national audience. The site’s name and concept were inspired by Jürgen Habermas’ idea of the public sphere, where private citizens come together to discuss matters of public relevance. Plaza Pública, which translates to “Public Square” in English, wants to be the place where such conversations not only take place (it has 80 blogs) but where they’re provoked by news stories.
