The San Bernardino County Sun du lieu suivant : San Bernardino, California • Page 36

ls6Tfie Sun MONDAY, August 7. 1989 area weeklies have variety of audiences Black-owned weeklies In the Inland Empire Newspaper Founded Based Publisher Circulation Precinct 1965 S.B. Brian Townsend 55,000 Reporter American 1969 S.B. Willie M. Martin 5,000 Newspaper Black Voice 1972 Riverside Cheryl and Hardy 7,500 Brown Westside Story 1987 S.B.

Wallace J. Allen 7,500 4 Continued fromE1 jndBlack Voice basically focus on "political news," said Jacocks. 2'That's why I read them. Westside Story is more the community -activities, who's new in town, who's doing what, even recipes. I think the American probably has a little bit of each." Said Nash: "In some cases, the readership depends on your economic, sociological and political slant.

Obviously, there must be a need because they are all in business and appear to be doing OK." The two oldest of the four weeklies were launched in the '60s as a result of the civil rights movement and growing social activism. Their founders felt that the mainstream press ignored or distorted what was happening in the non-white communities, and that the nation's blacks and Latinos needed to have their own voice. "You've got to have a deterrent to abuse that comes out of the mass media," said Samuel Martin the 64-year-old founder of the American News. He and Art Townsend, Bri Paper Drug Stores and Stater Vons and Hughes supermarkets. Stater Bros.

Market, the Col-ton-based chain with more than 100 stores, has been running full-page ads in the Precinct Reporter for the last few years. Stater Bros. Chairman Jack II. Brown said the relationship didn't stem from any social bent. "We try to never buy anything on emotion," he said.

Do the ads work? "Yes, we have found them to be effective," Brown said. He declined to elaborate or say how much the ads cost Stater Bros. The other papers have relied on small retail and service outlets, area auto dealers and professionals for advertising, which is the lifeblood of any newspaper. "The concern is keeping the revenue coming in, and that's what we work on everyday," said Cheryl Brown, 44, who publishes the Black Voice with her husband, Hardy. What has really made the difference for the older three weeklies is that they are adjudicated, meaning they can print legal ads, such as fictitious business names, some divorce announcements and city and county government announcements.

"When you get legals, you make money," Martin said. Nevertheless, the publishers of the ethnic weeklies grumble about the lack of advertising from the major regional and national companies. They say that blacks and Latinos buy name products and are especially brand-loyal, but the big companies seldom earmark any of their ad budget to small community newspapers. It is a criticism that is as old as the modern-day ethnic press. "You have to work very hard to continually convince advertisers that there's a market in the black community and Hispanic community and that they should tap it," said Hardy Brown, 46.

"The ethnic market is a tough market in the sense that (advertisers) want to use the ethnic press, but don't know what they want in the market," said Harrison, who publishes of four community weeklies. Despite its track record, even the Precinct Reporter has difficulty attracting large advertisers, including the utility companies, which are under government culation to 60,000 so it can devote more papers to the growing areas. The Black Voice, which circulates a limited number of papers each week in San Bernardino, also is benefiting from the population boom, said owners Hardy and Cheryl Brown. Attorneys, health-care professionals and lenders new to the area have advertised in the Voice, they said. One of those advertisers is Mary Ellen Daniels, a Riverside native who opened a law practice four years ago.

"The Black Voice sends in a lot of business to us," she said. Daniels said that ads in the Voice gave her practice credibility. "Cheryl and Hardy are well-known in the community and they would not allow an advertisement that was not on the up-and-up," she said. an's father (who died last February), created the Precinct Reporter in 1965. Martin said he left the Precinct Reporter in 1969 to create the American.

In contrast, Westside Story, the newest of the bunch, was created by 44-year-old Wallace J. Allen of San Bernardino as a money-making enterprise. Allen came to the Inland Empire to be a job developer for the area's now-defunct Urban League chapter. After editing the organization's newsletter and doing public relations, he felt he could turn a profit with a community newspaper. "I haven't lost anything" is how Allen describes his business.

Allen started the paper as a weekly, then went monthly, later switched to bi-monthly, and went back to weekly last March, he said. Westside Story is a four-page, standard-size newspaper. With relatively few subcrib-ers, the weeklies garner most of their revenues from advertising. Beer makers and tobacco companies occasionally have advertised in the older papers. But only the Precinct Reporter has major advertisers, such as Thrifty Bank Board, the regulatory body that oversees thrifts and their insurance fund, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp.

The uncertainty has frozen regulators' effectiveness, making ev-erday business cumbersome for thrifts. "Nobody has any authority to do anything," said Robert G. Wiens, president of Redlands Federal Savings and Loan Association. Like his banking competitors, Wiens has been anxious to see the $159 billion bailout program passed. But the complex plan to restructure the financial industry also portends higher insurance premiums and a bevy of problems for thrifts, especially those that have been buying other ailing he said.

The revised tangible capital requirements could give certain thrifts fits. Many carry intangible assets on their books called "good will," which will not be counted as capital under the Bailout: Budget issue could derail savings and loan issue new rules. For example, an institution might think that its well-respected name is worth $1 million. So it writes down the value of name recognition as a goodwill asset. But such intangible capital has no real value and would not qualify as capital under the proposed rule changes.

Some healthy thrifts have collected a large amount of good will on their books as a result of taking over sick Thrift regulators encouraged the consolidation of weak institutions with stronger ones because it compensated for the Bank Board's financial inability to shutter bankrupt concerns. As an incentive, Bank Board regulators allowed the healthy thrifts to write down generous amounts of intangible assets in return for merging with weaker "Some of these companies have a lot of goodwill on their books," Wiens said. "Now the Bank Board's being abolished by the (bill)." Closer to home, changes in the Dm laaiuraa feiiar tin life drawer and ana boi drawf mandate to spend a certain amount of their budgets with minority contractors and vendors, said Townsend. "The black press is the best medium for them to get those suppliers," he said. But region's burgeoning population, and the businesses and professionals that have arrived to service the residential influx are helping the black weeklies.

About 18 months ago, the Precinct Reporter launched an edition tailored for the Ontario-Pomona area, one of the region's fastest-growing. "It's really been a big hit out there," Townsend said. That's because the blacks living in the county's West End want a newspaper offering a black perspective on the news, he said. By the end of 1989, the Precinct Reporter wants to boost cir Instructors: Continued fromEl earn $30,000 to $40,000 in university economics departments. "The $20,000 spread can be a lure for people who have lived through years of graduate school on tight budgets," said Professor Robert M.

Solow of MIT, a Nobel laureate in economic science. Economics departments face another problem, too. The departments are generally less well endowed than the top business schools and find they can no longer afibrd finance professors. Finance has long been regarded as a core subject for economics majors. "The pay gap is so great that many economics departments, in I lG ii li rM kJ ul I LJ i i 4 i mm -a? ft A 44, ts Qj1 Payment method: Check Encbsed Ipayobl Charge my: QVISA QMC Credit Cord Exp.

Date Signature. jtjk to 5 I I hi FINISH 20" 42" I STUDENT DESK I 7Q99 rules regarding direct investment in real estate by thrifts could hurt the bottom line of Redlands Federal. The San Bernardino County thrift has added to its profit statement through prudent use of the controversial practice. Reckless investing in sunbelt real estate by many energy belt thrifts led to their demise. As a result, lawmakers decided that the practice needed to be curbed.

"They're throwing the baby out with the bath," Weins said. Redlands Federal has invested in real estate through its 15 year-old subsidiary, Redlands Financial Services Inc. Among other things, the unit invested in low-income housing in San Bernardino, Wiens said. The financial unit accounted for 21 percent of Redlands Federal's profits in 1989 and added $42 million to the capital column. While the new rules would not outlaw direct investment by thrifts, increases in capital requirements tied to the practice would make it less attractive.

I mm- ST 3 i 3 4 WbfXm You orUfe every day grac tavingsf (Up stand Dried' Tv' Ad now) list choose -jubsaipiton savings Or, caS us to? 1-CCQ4JSA-C! 4fUS -'1 i wa 1 enjoy OAK FINISH TYPEWRITER STAND Continued fromE1 ly cash to assets for would be half the amount required of banks. Banks feel they would be giving some ground by allowing thrifts ratios of 3 percent compared with the 6 percent requirements for banks, Jett said. The difference would give that much more money to invest as opposed to keeping it on reserve. But Jett said bankers are willing to permit the disparity in return for legislation that would clean up the insolvent thrift mess. "We wanted the bill that badly," he said.

The anticipation of a massive restructuring of the financial industry and its federal regulatory bodies has stymied both banks and Few institutions have been willing to implement long-range plans because they didn't know what kind of sweeping rule changes Congress would pass. For example, the bill will dismantle the Federal Home Loan LOANS Conduction Permanent LOANS Purchase Of Refinance LOANS Home Improvements or 2nd Trust Deeds, Minimum $10,000 LOANS First federal Savings OF SAN BERNARDINO Call Toil-Free 1-800-334-1894 Mam Office 599 N. San Bernardino (714) 889-0881 Barstow Offic 602 E. Main (619) 256-6873 3 lines 4 days $2 Let Super Sun Classified workforyou. Call 888-3252 (some restrictions apply) it- Mir I fOUAL MOUBINO LENDCH A 0 ONCUA Wtfc i 3 i 4995 LIST 107 00 Ideal lor horn or include casters.

Pay on the rise cluding ours, no longer try to hire finance professors," said John Shoven, chairman of the economics department at Stanford University. Shoven gets around this problem in two ways, as do his counterparts at Harvard, Yale, the University of Pennsylvania and other leading universities. They send their Ph.D. candidates in economics to their business schools for instruction in financial market theory. And they draft professors whose specialty is something else to teach finance to undergraduates.

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