‘You can’t participate if you don’t understand’
Second Houston Community Media Expo explores ways to engage region’s diverse audiences
Houston Endowment President and CEO Elisa Villanueva Beard
More than 250 journalists and community leaders gathered Oct. 8 for the second annual Houston Community Media Expo, Conference and Awards, exploring how local news outlets can better reach and serve Greater Houston’s diverse communities.
For Houston Endowment President and CEO Elisa Villanueva Beard, who delivered opening remarks, the importance of community media is personal.
She recalled how in 1988, her grandmother relied on Telemundo in the Rio Grande Valley for information that helped her and her neighbors make a plan for weathering Hurricane Gilbert. “They spoke the way she spoke, with the sayings she knew. Nobody had to interpret anything for her.”
“I was young, but I understood something,” said Villanueva Beard. “That TV didn't only inform her. It told her she was seen. There were enough people like her that someone had built something for her. She respected her city more because of it.”
Villanueva Beard said today’s community journalists play an essential role in building trust and helping residents access information about everything from storm preparation and health services to navigating the citizenship process.
“You can’t participate if you don’t understand,” she said.
Houston Community Media (HCoM) was founded in 2022 with support from Houston Endowment. Modeled after American Community Media, it is a network of more than 45 regional news outlets serving audiences in a dozen languages. Its co-director, Nakia Cooper, called the expo “a day to step outside of our media silos and explore.”
“This year exposure was the big word,” Cooper said. “We had more representation from the Houston establishment—people wanted to connect to us. More people are getting it.”
Through panel discussions and workshops, participants learned strategies for reaching audiences with distinct information needs, building partnerships, and responding to changes in how people consume news. Sessions addressed the emergence of Gen Z social media influencers in delivering messages and how newsrooms can navigate the growing role of artificial intelligence.
Sandy Close, director emeritus and founder of American Community Media, said interest and attendance from the public sphere was “a tremendous source of validation for our media partners.”
“For ethnic news outlets that have long felt invisible and ignored, to have so many leaders and community stakeholders come to meet us was inspiring,” Close said. “The expo was a way not just for people in the public sector to step outside their media silos, but for us as ethnic media to step outside our own.”
The conference is one part of HCoM’s ongoing work to strengthen community journalism. The network also holds monthly news briefings focused on issues affecting the communities its member outlets serve. Learn more about Houston Community Media here.
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