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The
NCM Media EXPO 2004
Fresno, September 24 , 2004/ Indonesia
Media
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From the decade-old mini media empire serving
Sacramento’s Russian community to upstart weeklies
and monthlies serving Filipino, Vietnamese, Indonesian,
Cambodian, Portuguese, Punjabi and Hmong communities throughout
the valleys; from the urban hubs of Spanish-languange TV
giants to home-grown TV and radio shows targeting Native
American, Hmong, Korean, Chinese communities from Hoopa
to Indio; and from veteran black weeklies whose titles define
ethnic media’s historic advocacy role to burgeoning
Spanish dan bilingual print and broadcast outlets now reaching
bi-national audiences - these are the media keeping localism
alive in American journalism.
The challenge for NCM after organizing three EXPOs in San
Francisco and one in Los Angeles was to break out of our
own coastal provincialism and create event here in Fresno
that would showcase Valley media.
From the start late last year, we received tremendous support
from virtually every sector. NCM partners have hosted elegant
dinners to introduce ethnic media to each other - whether
at the Fantasy Lounge in Indio or the Great Valley Center
in Modesto, the offices of Vida en el Valle/The Fresno Bee
in Fresno or The Black Voice in San Bernardino. Civic leaders
and communications experts have spent hours explaining key
trends in the valleys, recommending topics for EXPO sessions,
and recruiting stakeholders to help us. Foundations and
corporate sponsors have responded to the chance to highlight
valley media as their own priority. And where else would
out event get marquee billing four weeks in advance but
at the Fresno Convention Center?
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What we’ve discovered is a region not
only outpacing the State in both demographic and economic
growth, with all the attendant disparities that produces,
but a region that exudes a sense of optimism. As our EXPO
artwork depicts, the Valleys represent NCM’s new frontier
- a source of energy and possibility for the entire state.
In state with a population as culturally, linguistically,
economically and geographically diverse as California’s,
the ability to connect with communities everywhere is as
challenging, and more important, than ever.
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