• September 3, 2003

Three new or expanded Spanish-language newspapers debuted Tuesday, with publishers and advertisers taking notice. El Nuevo Dia, owned by the largest daily newspaper in Puerto Rico of the same name, began publishing weekdays in Orlando. Tribune Co. debuted its daily Hoy in Chicago and Knight Ridder's Diario La Estrella in Dallas/Fort Worth expanded from twice to five times a week. Later this fall, Belo Corp.'s The Dallas Morning News will start publishing Al Dia six days a week and charge 25 cents. New York, Los Angeles and Miami already have their own Spanish-language dailies. There's also hope that Spanish-language publications will improve the newspaper industry's flagging circulation numbers. Newspaper readership has been in a slow yet steady decline over the last three decades, according to the Newspaper Association of America. In 2002, just 55.4 percent of adult Americans read a paper during the week; in 1970, the figure was 77.6 percent.