By now you know that the New York Post endorsed Barack Obama, (although tonight's primary vote puts New York in the Clinton column). Did you know that New York City's largest African American newspaper, the Amsterdam News, endorsed Hillary Clinton? While Ted and Caroline Kennedy made headlines coast to coast with their endorsement of Obama, the Irish Echo reported that Irish-American activists were "puzzled" that Pres. Bill Clinton's contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland didn't translate into a Kennedy endorsement for Hillary.

While ethnic presses garner little attention outside of the communities they serve, their reporting may prove to be critical to understanding what is really happening in this watershed election. In New York City alone, there are more than 200 ethnic news outlets, publishing in dozens of languages. In the news industry, ethnic presses also represent a business opportunity as immigration and birth rates continue to make the United States more diverse than ever.

At Beautiful, Also Are the Souls of My Black Sisters, Fernanda notes that a group of ethnic news outlets joined forces in January to cover the White House Race in the Feet in Two Worlds project. Fernanda explains:

"[E]thnic media outlets have been intensely attentive to the presidential competition, not only because it is the most competitive presidential race in decades, but also because American foreign policy and immigration reform are also headline issues that resonate with their audiences."

Ethnic news outlets don't capture huge national audiences, but their markets have the industry's attention. This month, for example, the Washington Post introduced The Root, an online magazine targeting African Americans. The site's editor in chief is Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, who brought us the dearly departed Africana.com, which was sold out and dumbed down to become AOL Black Voices.. [Full disclosure: I wrote two pieces for Africana.com in 2004.]

With less fanfare, Keith Boykin, former media advisor to Pres. Bill Clinton, launched his own competing venture, the The Daily Voice. Both magazines emphasize commentary and topical debates by prominent black writers and thinkers. The Root also plays off of Gates' "African American Lives" project with articles and resources related to genealogy.[UPDATE 2/6/08]: Please see the comment below, in which Boykin explains that he does not see The Daily Voice as a competitor to The Root. I have left my original wording to preserve the context of his comments.]

Cwriteandtheride says that "The Root's" emphasis on soft news "is at the Root of What's Wrong With the Media:"

"Unfortunately, we don’t hear enough about the problems returning veterans are encountering as they try to readjust to life after the war and how these problems will have an impact on our economy and on our communities, perhaps further taxing increasingly limited resources thanks to the current housing/mortgage crisis. And what about state of education, not just in the inner cities but also in the rural areas of our country? And I want to know about other members of the Latino community – Domincans, Puerto Ricans, South and Central Americans. What are their thoughts about the illegal immigration debate and the current redefining of “latino” and “Hispanic” to mean “Mexican” and “illegal”? I want to know what it is like to be poor and white in America? Who speaks for this group? Why is such vitriol hurled at them from their wealthier white brethren? (If I hear another white person refer to a less fortunate white person as “white trash” , I might just unleash a serious earthshaking tirade.) Finally, I want to hear from my Caribbean American and African American (defined as people with no roots in American slavery) folks whose voices are often unheard or drowned out by their native black American counterparts."

Don't expect that kind of real diverse coverage from these new ventures. For one thing, real community reporting requires having real relationships with members of the community you serve. Robert Niles, editor of the Online Journalism Review recently observed that ethnic news outlets could their mainstream counterparts a few lessons on relationship-building. But reporting for ethnic news outlets can be hazardous duty as well. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported last week, 11 of the 13 journalists murdered in the US over the last 30 years worked for ethnic news outlets. Like the Oakland [Cal] Post's Chauncey Bailey, many of these journalists were murdered because they were investigating misdeeds by powerful people in their own communities.

As the US continues to become more diverse and more linguistically and culturally complex, ethnic news outlets will become even more important than they are now. But they will need to be centers of reporting and analysis that is grounded in the communities they serve, staffed by professionals willing to brave the low pay, long hours and sometimes dangerous situations that come with the territory. The ethnic presses may turn out to be the one place where traditional journalism values will prevail.