Enlace Latino NC launched Enlace Latino NC podcasts, the first and only digital audio news products to deliver local Spanish-only news in North Carolina. Latinos en la Pandemia is our weekly podcast delivering Coronavirus news, information, resources and community stories during the pandemic. Its first season (10 episodes) closed at the end of June 2020, to be followed by the second season in September 2020 (this will include election coverage). Our second podcast, De Sol a Sol, launched June 2020 brings coverage of and to rural farm workers on a bimonthly basis through October 2020. As of July 31st, 2020 we’ve produced 14 podcast episodes (combined). We started the first season of Latinos en la Pandemia from April to the end of June.
We decided to launch the Enlace Latino NC Podcast to:
1) Serve Spanish-speaking, undocumented, and underserved Latino immigrant communities, including rural areas where they have little access to information in Spanish. Most of the people have a mobile device, they are familiar with social networks, YouTube and WhatsApp and although the concept of
“podcast” is new, listening to audios is not. Many of the members of the Latino communities in North Carolina cannot read, so audio is an alternative to inform and educate themselves.
2) Grow our audience by expanding our reach across the state and engaging hard-to-reach segments (those who also happen to be especially vulnerable, such as isolated farm workers in rural counties);
3) Produce more vital coverage on COVID-19 while keeping pace with our regular demands for content, which are also increasing due to the overlapping election period. The COVID-19 coverage demands compete with the immediacy of our regular content demands (local and federal immigration policy and community affairs). Podcasts address this immediate demand while diversifying our repertoire of news products and serving as a launchpad for an ongoing project that will engage all segments of our audience.