Miniondas and Farandula USA, OC's Oldest Spanish-Language Newspapers, Acquired by Real-Estate Agent

It's not just English-language newspapers that have suffered during journalism's long, hard decline. Over the past five years, Orange County has lost at least three Spanish-language newspapers, while the titans of the industry--the always fabulous Rumores (which never ceases to put a hot woman on the cover, a strategy this infernal rag should adopt) and the co-published Miniondas and Farandula USA (which focuses on entertainment) have seen their page count shrink over that time period, with the latter two turning from a broadsheet into a tabloid. It's been troubling especially for Miniondas/Farandula USA, as it's the oldest continually operating Spanish-language newspaper based in Orange County, with editor-publisher Sergio Velazquez having been at it since 1975 from the paper's offices off of Main Street in SanTana.

Not any more.

Earlier this week, it was announced that real-estate agent Sandra Cervantes acquired the papers. You can read her bio here, but she has no experience in journalism yet already claims to want to get internships at the papers (which each have a circulation of 45,000) for college students interested in Spanish-language media.

Miniondas was no Zeta, and if you can tell me the last story the paper did that broke news, it'll be the first time I heard the paper do such a thing. But it was good at documenting community events, and Velazquez was always a ceaseless fundraiser for local and Mexican causes. We wish him well, and let's see what Cervantes has in store for the papers...

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