The shutdown of La Estrella de Tucsón
The editor of the Arizona Daily Star's Spanish-language publication shares her mourning and reflection.
We launched the Tucson Agenda in the wake of a devastating round of layoffs at the Arizona Daily Star, in which several people who regularly interacted with the community were let go without the opportunity to say goodbye.
One of those people was Hispanic Community Engagement Editor and La Estrella de Tucsón Editor, Liliana López Ruelas, who worked for years to grow La Estrella and build relationships with Spanish-speaking members of the community.
In addition to eliminating Liliana’s positions, the Star’s corporate leadership also cut her two-person team, shutting down La Estrella de Tucsón and ending Spanish-language reporting in Southern Arizona’s newspaper of record.
We invited Liliana to talk about what she’s been up to, what’s next in her life and what she thinks about Tucson’s newly created Spanish-language news desert.
You can find a separate, paywall-free Spanish-language version of Liliana’s story here. Please share it with your Spanish-speaking friends and family.
I knew when I received a call from an unknown number on April 24 that the end of an era had arrived. La Estrella de Tucsón, the Spanish-language newspaper I edited and loved was being shut down, and I was being laid off, along with La Estrella’s two reporters and seven other colleagues at the Arizona Daily Star.
In a way, the closure of La Estrella de Tucsón was a foretold death for me. And the months that followed have been filled with reflective mourning, self-examination and introspection.
I wasn't the first of the ten Star journalists to get such a call that morning.
In the following days, I was fortunate to receive great love and support from family, friends and colleagues. Fortunately, I had options. But the so-called “Latinos” in Tucson, mostly people with Mexican roots, did not.
The only local print and digital publication in Spanish truly committed to journalism had been eliminated.
Not only did those of us who were readers of La Estrella lose an essential information channel, but as a society we lost a voice, resonance, light and reflectors. And a number of local organizations lost a reliable way to connect with our community.
It was time to pause and reflect.
La Estrella was created in 2004, surviving the financial crisis of 2009, the pandemic and the profound changes in the business of journalism that constantly constrained our newsroom and every newsroom in the country.
For the last 10 years, La Estrella had had no more than two full-time positions, and for a couple of years, including 2020, there was only one. With the support and sensitivity of the Star’s leadership and fellow journalists, we had managed in the past two years to add a full-time position, spend more time listening to our community, produce original content and create an innovative audio newsletter that was delivered via WhatsApp and SMS.
So, what happened? If you ask me, I’d say the journalism industry and audience have gone through a big transformation, and it has been very difficult for us as media to understand those changes, especially when confined by the economic needs of a corporation.
A lot has changed, and a lot still needs to change.
The closure of newspapers is only growing in the country. According to a study by Northwestern University, by 2025, one out of three newspapers that existed in 2005 will have closed.
This industry continues to give most of its media management positions to white men and to pay Latina journalist salaries well below the average.
Big media does not invest enough in getting to know and recognize the greatness, diversity and evolution of the Latino community in U.S. The audience of 2023 is not the same as that in 2005. We don't even speak the same language anymore.
Latinos generate $2.8 billion a year in the United States, and we are on our way to representing 25% of the country’s population in 2060, but media outlets still annihilate publications for the Hispanic community.
Often, we get into the game of Americanizing our community, pretending to cover it only with stories of tacos and avocados instead of doing conscious coverage of our heterogeneity, our contributions to the nation and our singular needs. I myself have translated into Spanish stories in which an American author describes what a tamale is, and many more with essential information in which we take for granted that our readers understand what we are talking about.
I’ll say something extremely unpopular here: A big slice of our Latino community doesn’t want or can’t invest in quality media, nor can they take time to read and discern if a source is trustworthy. The truth is that we need to educate our public in this.
We still think that all Mexicans or Latinos live in one or two ZIP codes, or have the same type of jobs and interests, although we will soon be half the population in Tucson.
I know this is a biased, simplistic list of thoughts that generalizes effects without addressing the causes. I do it and share it as a part of my self-reflection exercise.
My colleague and friend Mariana Alvarado — whom I met in Tucson more than 12 years ago — questioned the state of journalism at the recent convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists in July.
“We want more Latinos in the media, but in which media? In the American media?” she asked.
And I would add, “and doing what?”
It seems obvious to me that it's time to look inward, as is being done by a minority but growing and feisty group of now-independent journalists in the United States.
Journalism that is community-based, hyper-local and focused on the needs of the people is blooming. It’s becoming more effective at providing information that encourages civil participation, helps improve the quality of life of consumers and sheds light on both social inequalities and the richness of our community. And it's doing it largely through new channels that encourage dialogue with the audience, such as WhatsApp, text messages and email newsletters.
Examples of this include the Tucson Agenda and the Arizona Agenda, along with other local media such as Arizona Luminaria and Conecta Arizona, a media product created in Phoenix by Mexican journalist Maritza Félix.
"The community and independent media have become littles fireflies of democracy when the lights of the big corporations that stop investing in local journalism in Spanish go out," Maritza recently wrote in a column for Prensa Arizona.
Other relevant references of this type of journalism focused on listening to its audience and providing useful information are Documented, in New York; El Tímpano, in California; and Enlace Latino, in North Carolina, to name a few. National podcasts Radio Ambulante and Latino USA have made a significant impact for years.
These outlets, like many other nonprofit newsrooms, were founded mostly by women who previously worked for large companies.
Months after that life-changing phone call, I’m ready to continue reflecting, self-criticizing and learning as a student of the Masters in Bilingual Journalism at the University of Arizona, a program created by Jessica Retis, another Latina who is influencing Hispanic journalism in the United States.
For now, it is difficult for me to say exactly how and from where I will contribute to writing a new chapter of journalism in service of my community. I can only affirm that I will do so.
Stars emit their own light, a light that illuminates our communities. That is my goal, too, to shine a light that allows my own community to shine a little bit brighter.
Helping hands: A new mutual aid group has been spending Sunday afternoons in downtown Tucson distributing water, Gatorade, Eegee’s, snacks, first-aid supplies and other essential items free of charge to people in need, This Is Tucson’s Elvia Verdugo writes. The group, Gator-Aid, is part of local organizations Community Care Tucson and Community on Wheels, with supplies donated by community members and local businesses.
Looking to the future: University of Arizona researchers are combining science and food to help other communities learn to adapt to climate change, Arizona Public Media’s Hannah Cree reports. The “Tasting Tomorrow” project uses climate analog modeling to predict future conditions in a given region by comparing it to places that are already experiencing such conditions. Researchers can then see what crops and foods will grow in the new climate and share that knowledge. The research team predicts that in 50 years, Tucson’s climate will be most similar to parts of Pakistan and Central Australia.
We hope the Tucson Agenda is still around in 50 years, but we’re still fundraising for our first year. Help us reach our goal so that we can work on building year two!
Hold your horses: The Sahuarita Town Council is considering lowering the speed limits on Nogales Highway, the Tucson Sentinel’s Blake Morlock reports. The current maximum speed limit varies between 35 and 55 miles per hour along the stretch of road from Interstate 19 to Abrego Drive. If the council approves the recommendation, the speed limit would drop from 45 to 40 miles per hour from the interstate through the commercial area and increase to 45 miles per hour at Calle Valle Verde.
624: The number of Latino news media outlets in the U.S., including Puerto Rico, according to City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School in Journalism. If we subtract Puerto Rico, the number drops to 558.
We believe in paying our contributors for their work, and we’d like to be able to do the same with our University of Arizona intern who joins us next week. But we need money to do that. Help make sure that we can pay more journalists for their work!