Born in 2000 as the IPA New York Grassroots Media Project, IPA-NY spun off into its own entity last week as the national office, founded a decade ago in San Francisco to support independent publications committed to social justice by providing loans, technical assistance and networking opportunities, closed its doors. The local office will continue to “coalesce ethnic and community newspapers into a group of journalists that have more access to advertisers, government information and political officials than they would have as individuals,” said IPA-NY Executive Director Juana Ponce de Leon.
On Jan. 2 the IPA board publicly announced its decision to “shut down operations” and sell off its assets to “resolve our debt to Indy Press Newsstand Services publishers.” In an e-mail to members, the board said, “Ultimately, we were unable to overcome the toll of the ongoing deficits incurred by the newsstand operation.”
One division of the national IPA office has also spun off on its own. New Voices in Independent Journalism – comprised of The George Washington Williams Fellowship and The Campus Journalism Project – will carry on the missions of those programs independently. The fellowship sponsors professional journalists who write social justice stories about issues including healthcare, education, global trade policy and race. The Campus Journalism Project provides support for independent college journalists working toward social change on their campuses.
Current and former IPA staffers said last week they were saddened by the loss of the national IPA office, but grateful that IPA-NY would carry on its mission.
“We didn’t expect to be announcing the formation of our own organization at the same time the IPA national office announced its closure,” said Ponce de Leon. “We are chagrined at the loss of the national office but thankful that our office can stay focused on giving a greater voice to ethnic and community newspapers in New York.”
The IPA-NY office helps connect small papers with advertisers, offers a fellowship program to train journalists at ethnic papers and organizes press briefings with newsmakers to provide small papers with access to big news.
Peter Paris is the publisher of Tiempo New York, a free, bilingual Spanish/English-language newspaper distributed in East Harlem and the Bronx. The paper publishes biweekly with a full-time staff of only six people. After joining IPA New York, its circulation more than doubled, climbing from 15,000 to 40,000. With IPA-NY’s help, the paper will soon be expanding into Queens and Brooklyn.
“Without IPA New York, our paper would not be as good as it is today,” Paris said. “They run on a shoestring budget just like we do, so when you come to them with a problem, they empathize, and they have solutions. You can go up to their office and have a cup of coffee and talk about the challenges you are facing and they have six phone numbers for you. I feel like they are great friends and I’m grateful for the services they provide.”
One of the ways IPA-NY amplifies the impact of community and ethnic papers is by publishing a weekly newsletter called Voices That Must Be Heard. It provides English translations of stories from ethnic papers, providing “the one and only window for the mainstream media to get a glimpse into what is happening in ethnic communities,” said Ponce de Leon.
