A version of this article appeared on the El Paso Herald Post yesterday.
From “Adios, amigos” on October 11, 1997 to “Hola Amigos,” in 2015, today marks the rebirth of a 100-year-old El Paso news institution – the El Paso Herald-Post. The El Paso Herald Post returned to provide comprehensive news coverage for El Paso and surrounding communities.
After reporting news for 116 years, the El Paso Herald Post published its last newspaper on October 11, 1997. Its last headline read, “Adios, amigos.” It remained dead until long-time journalist now at KTSM, Chris Babcock, revived it as a digital newspaper with the appropriate headline “Hola, Amigos” in 2015. Babcock closed the newspaper five years later to concentrate on his job at the television station.
Yesterday, the El Paso Herald Post was reborn with a warm “Bienvenidos al future.” It is determined to work hard to keep the spirit and the determination to report news honestly that made the El Paso Herald Post the newspaper that it was for over 100 years – first as the traditional newspaper and later as its reincarnation as a digital news outlet. This latest reincarnation wants to be the newspaper of the future.
Today’s headlines spell the “doom” of the news media and news consumers have lost faith in what the news reports. By losing faith in the news, consumers aren’t willing to pay for it, and rightly so. It wasn’t like this. Without a sustainable revenue source over the last decade, local newspapers are dying. El Paso isn’t immune. The El Paso Times is but a shadow of itself. It’s last editor as the Times was declining left it and a few years later launched the El Paso Matters, the city’s defacto newspaper of record.
Such is the decline of the local news outlets that the El Paso Matters byline regularly appears television news outlets across town.
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Without a competing news outlet, news consumers were left questioning whether they are getting the full story or part of it. The problem is not just whether the full story is being reported but that the decline in news outlets helps to fester corruption. As David Simon told a Senate subcommittee in 2009, “as newspapers collapsed, corruption would flourish.”
El Paso needed another news outlet to provide news not found anywhere else. When the original El Paso Herald Post existed, it provided a balance to the reporting being produced by the El Paso Times. News consumers benefited from two sources of news to consume.
Today, that is true once again, as the El Paso Herald Post begins to fill the news void in El Paso.
The El Paso News group now has three publications delivering news content to three important demographics. For local news, the El Paso Herald Post will focus on being the competing newspaper of record for El Paso. Fronterizo News, on the other hand, is an online magazine covering the culture and political scene of the Mexican-American diaspora. Fronterizo informs through long-form journalism and in-depth reporting of the issues that are important to America’s Hispanic community. This publication will continue to do what it has done for over 20 years – delving deep into the politics and public policies of El Paso.
Although the three are related news outlets, they each target three different demographics.
As for El Paso Herald Post, it is on a mission to show what the future of the news will be. It may look digital, but it is much more than that.
Expect to see video newscasts delivering news digests to keep you informed. One of the important pieces of news coverage is the lack of coverage of the neighborhoods that are the core of any city. The digital newspaper will be unveiling neighborhood coverage soon.
But the important aspect that news consumers should expect from the El Paso Herald Post is news reporting unincumbered by placating advertisers and other financial supporters.
El Paso is now home to robust local news platforms competing for your attention. This means that we all must do better to recover the trust news consumers once had in its news outlets.