The Hartford Courant has abandoned its previous Spanish-language site, which ran the Courant’s content through Google Translate.
In an email to Poynter, Tribune Company spokesperson Gary Weitman says the new site, Noticias, launched last week and “is a 100-percent Spanish language news site produced by our newsroom.”
The Courant has also hired a part-time local editor, Marysol Saldana-Knipper, who will assist in translating Courant-produced stories into Spanish. The Courant also recently launched Mi Comunidad, produced by Courant Photojournalist Patrick Raycraft, it’s a multimedia news package highlighting stories from our growing Latino community. Patrick is fluent in Spanish and his stories will be appear regularly on Noticias.
According to the 2010 Census, 43.4 percent of Hartford’s population is of Hispanic or Latino origin. The site’s previous iteration presented limited utility to Spanish-speakers, former Courant columnist Bessy Reyna wrote in a blog post in July:
The July 12 posts brings these news “Este mujer Hartford acusado de apuñalar con el hombrepelador de patatas” which literally reads: “This woman Hartford Accused of stabbing the man with potato peeler.”
Noticias runs some wire copy, and it will provide Spanish content from Tribune’s Spanish papers in Florida and Chicago, Weitman says.
