Union-Tribune begs advertisers to use its Spanish edition

Soon-Shiong’s hat-passing scheme

San Diego Union-Tribune en Español, a free weekly broadsheet, has long struggled to gain traction after its predecessors, Hoy, and for years before that Enlace, were shot down by corporate economizers. The latest incarnation dates to early 2019, when the U-T folded Hoy less than a year after Los Angeles billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the San Diego paper and sister L.A. Times in June 2018 from Tribune Publishing for $500 million.

“Welcome to the first edition of The San Diego Union-Tribune in Spanish,” wrote U-T editor Jeff Light in a February 23, 2019, message. “The decision to align more tightly with the Union-Tribune in English reflects our conviction that San Diego is a single community.” Most stories, Light continued, “will be translated from those published in English in our main newspaper, but there will also be original and exclusive material reported and written in Spanish.”

That March, U-T Readers Rep Adrian Vore reported that the publication was being “distributed to 70,000 addresses in the South Bay and North County. In addition, 30,000 appear in racks in the South Bay.” Now biotech maven Soon-Shiong, who has been keeping the Times and U-T alive with his own money, is doing some high-tech hat-passing for the San Diego paper’s Spanish edition in a house advertisement questioning the section’s future.

“We rely on advertisements from local businesses,” says the display ad’s headline, as translated from Spanish. “Dear Readers, We Request Your Help.” Alluding to the covid-19 pandemic, the pitch continues, “To provide coverage of local news, city governments and things to do — and to highlight uplifting stories in our communities — we rely on advertisements from local businesses. Some have been closed, and although they are opening little by little, our advertising has been seriously reduced.” Concludes the message, illustrated with an image of an older man reading the paper while a white-haired woman nearby uses a smartphone: “This is where your help comes in. To ensure that the San Diego Union-Tribune en Español continues to be healthy and robust, your contribution, in any measure, is now more important than ever.”

A link to PressPatron.com, the crowdfunding New Zealand-based website that is collecting the U-T donations from the public, brings up a message from section editor Lilia O’Hara: “Your financial contribution will help ensure that we can continue our mission to provide local journalism that makes a difference in the community, reporting on news, arts, entertainment, and culture.”

Friends in low places

Clean Up California, Kevin Faulconer’s Ballot Measure Committee to Recall Gavin Newsom, one of the ex-San Diego mayor’s three funds backing his failed bid to recall Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, didn’t waste time shutting down. The guillotine fell September 23, per state filings.

Getting chunks of the remaining cash balance of $9,650.14 were San Diego-based Agenda Setting LLC, run by ex-Faulconer mayoral aide Aimee Faucett, with $1000; and Kansas City’s Axiom Strategies, home of the ex-mayoral chief of staff Stephen Puetz, $2500...Assembly Democrat Lorena Gonzalez, who announced on Twitter that she emerged from a September 11 bilateral mastectomy with “no cancer left,” picked up a total of $19,400 six days later for her 2022 reelection bid, courtesy of the Standing Committee on Political Education of the California Labor Federation.

Her husband, county supervisor Nathan Fletcher, gave $5000 of cash left in his Democratic Central Committee 2000 election fund to the San Diego Democratic Party on September 7. Five days before that, the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association of San Diego PAC came up with $2500 for the county’s Republican Party...The Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters Issues Committee kicked in a cool $250,000 to the San Diego Alliance for Traffic Relief, Reliable Transit & Jobs on September 13. That’s the group led by labor and business lobbies campaigning in favor of a ballot measure to boost county transactions and use tax by a half percent, designating the money for infrastructure projects...

According to a September report by SANDAG, the San Diego Association of Governments, San Diego county crime is soaring. “The violent crime rate of 3.64 per 1,000 population was 7% higher than it was ten years ago and the second-highest rate it has been in the ten-year comparison period,” the document says. But murders were down slightly. “There were 48 homicides in the first half of 2021, lower than the 54 reported in 2020 but higher than the 38 reported in 2019.” Also, “There were 532 rapes reported to law enforcement in San Diego County in the first half of 2021, more than the number reported in the first half of 2020 (433) when the stay-home order was in effect, but around the same number as in 2019 (when there were 539).”

— Matt Potter (@sdmattpotter)

The Reader offers $25 for news tips published in this column. Call our voice mail at 619-235-3000, ext. 440, or sandiegoreader.com/staff/matt-potter/contact/.