New York Community Media Alliance- Press Profile
2010 Union Square Award Recipient
115 West 29th Street, Rm 606
New York, NY 10001
www.indypressny.org
Media Contact: Jehangir Khatta, Communications Manager
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| (212) 279-1442
New York Community Media Alliance (NYCMA) is a member-driven organization that promotes and advocates for the ethnic and community media in the New York City metropolitan area. “The model we’ve developed here is very community rooted,” says Juana Ponce de León, who leads this organization that is dedicated to strengthening the role of the immigrant and community press. Immigrants represent 60% of the City’s population, and 350 weeklies and 26 foreign-language dailies reach out to more than 3.5 million readers - 1.8 million who speak and read languages other than English, according to the Mayor's Office on Immigrant Affairs.
NYCMA encourages informed civic participation in low-income, working-class, immigrant and communities of color that are not well served by mainstream media, and where English is not the primary language. Programs work to project news and analyses from these communities, encourage collaboration among journalists across ethnicities and neighborhoods, help advocacy groups disseminate messages to target communities, and integrate voices on the ground to important policy debates. Through these efforts, NYCMA has helped the media sector forge a broader public identity that is increasingly recognized by candidates and legislators alike.
Other NYCMA programs provide training, fellowships opportunities, and new outlets to disseminate information. Its weekly online newsletter, Voices That Must Be Heard, circulates the best work of member papers to 9,000 direct subscribers and 20,000 weekly visitors – mainstream journalists, educators, policymakers, and advocates who may not otherwise have such information. The Independent Press Institute offers briefings to ethnic and community journalists and technical workshops to editors and marketing staff that expand reporters' access to information sources. Each year, NYCMA sponsors the Ippies, the City’s only community journalism award that is considered a benchmark for excellence and a coveted prize for publishers, editors, and reporters in the City's ethnic and community press.