Why California’s Hispanic small businesses need local news

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OPINION—Walk through any Hispanic neighborhood in California and you’ll see it: a three-generation panadería, a tax preparer who knows every family on the block, a body shop where the owner’s name is on the sign.

What you may not see is how much of that survival depends on whether a local reporter ever shows up to tell their story.

California is home to more than 4 million small businesses, and over 815,000 of them are Hispanic-owned. For the entrepreneurs behind them, local news isn’t background noise. It’s a lifeline.

For local business owners navigating the everyday challenges entrepreneurship, often while serving customers across languages and cultures, local news has historically been one of the most powerful tools they have. Small businesses advertise on local news more affordably than national advertising, while speaking directly to the communities they are trying to reach.

Just as importantly, local news builds trust in ways national stations and algorithms cannot.

That’s why the future of local broadcast news is a small business issue, and particularly important to the Hispanic communities across this state. The proposed integration of Nexstar and Tegna deserves serious consideration from those who care about the economic health of Hispanic communities.

The deal would create scale for local broadcasters that communities like ours rely on, allowing local news to exist in a new media environment dominated by multi-billion-dollar tech companies. It would help ensure small businesses around the country, including those in California, can continue to reach the right audiences, build credibility, and remain vital parts of their communities.

Without this kind of integration, I worry about the future of local news in an age where it is increasingly drowned out by streaming giants and social media algorithms.

Local news builds the sense of community and connection that neighborhoods across California depend on. In addition to small businesses advertising, local news is a place for communities to see their sporting events, local politics, and community fundraisers covered—stories that would not appear on national broadcast.

For California’s Hispanic community, a local news station covering a Hispanic-owned business down the street gives viewers a sense of connection that national outlets cannot meaningfully replicate.

That is part of the reason 85% of Americans say their local news outlets are important to the well-being of their community, and roughly seven in ten say their local journalists report news accurately and stay in touch with the people they cover—numbers no national outlet can match.

The Nexstar-Tegna deal would strengthen and scale the local newsrooms behind those numbers, ensuring viewers continue to get access to the stations they count on. If that integration is blocked and local news availability decreases, communities across the state that rely on broadcast news will be the ones to suffer.

Publicity can make or break a small business—and for the thousands of Hispanic-owned businesses in California, local broadcast news is one of the most powerful and accessible forms of publicity available. It is the reporter who shows up to the ribbon cutting

The anchor who pronounces the name of the neighborhood correctly. The program that airs in the language the community actually speaks.

Losing it would not just be a loss for journalism. It would be a loss for the entrepreneurs, the families, and the communities that have worked too hard and come too far to be left without a voice.

A combined Nexstar-Tegna would be an important step toward ensuring local broadcast news endures—continuing to represent communities, support local businesses, and provide Californians with trusted, relatable, and reliable news.

The alternative is a media landscape where our neighborhoods’ stories are told by people who have never set foot in them. California’s Hispanic small business owners have spent generations building something worth covering.

They deserve a local press strong enough to keep covering it.

Julian Cañete serves as the president and CEO of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce (CHCC).