CTNewsJunkie and CTLatinoNews are proud to announce a new collaboration focused on news coverage of the ongoing disaster recovery crisis in Puerto Rico.
Our sites are similar in many ways. CTLatinoNews was launched in 2012 to fill a gap in the news coverage of people and issues impacting Connecticut’s Latino residents, and CTNewsJunkie was launched in 2005 to fill a gap in the news coverage from the state Capitol in Hartford.
While the news cycle in the United States has been dominated by coverage of the ongoing impeachment process in Washington, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has been struggling through multiple natural disasters and, as a result, major political turmoil as well.
The ongoing recovery from Maria has been hampered by additional storms, the worst earthquake in the island’s history, and a number of failures within the government’s effort to distribute supplies to disaster-stricken areas. As a result, many are newly homeless and protestors are demanding action at the island’s Capitol.
Here in Connecticut, we have found that there is very little news coverage available regarding the island’s ongoing crisis. And since there are so many Puerto Rican families here with concerns about their extended family members on the island, we have reached out to reporter Angélica Serrano-Román to provide us with a few news stories to help keep us up to date.
Connecticut’s ties to Puerto Rico are significant – many residents split their time between here and with their families on the island, and 53% of Connecticut’s Latinos are Puerto Rican. The Nutmeg State was home to over 298,000 Puerto Rican residents in 2016 – 8.3% of the state’s overall population – and the U.S. Census estimates that another 13,000 people moved here from the U.S. territory following Hurricane Maria in 2017. But most importantly, the island’s ongoing crisis is monumental. We want to tell that story.
Check out Serrano-Román’s first story tomorrow morning, headlined: Turmoil in Puerto Rico: Protests, Dismissals and a Major Disaster Declaration Follow Earthquakes
