Over the past several months, since I have taken over the operation of Atencion—San Miguel’s bilingual newspaper of almost 47 years—I’ve met with hundreds of members of our community: businesspeople, political figures, artists, locally born residents, students, and expats of many different countries. In almost every conversation, after being called brave, foolish, crazy, and many other things unfit to print, an important question almost always ends up being…so why did you do it?!?!?
First and foremost, my wife Tamanna and I love this country and this city. I first studied in Guadalajara in 1996 to learn the Spanish language and Mexican culture to help prepare me for what has been over 25 years of doing business in Mexico. My wife and I were married in Mexico, we have been coming to San Miguel for almost 20 years, and we are proud permanent residents of this city. Despite having traveled to 60+ countries and countless cities, we chose San Miguel as the community where we want to live.
As residents of this wonderful city, I think it is important to be active to continue to protect what is amazing and continue to work to improve what needs to be made better. A big part of what makes San Miguel so special is the diversity of our community—from SMA-born Mexicans, to Mexicans from other states, to tourists, to expats from other countries—all sharing the same narrow streets and sidewalks!
Despite this diversity, I believe that there is an opportunity for us to have a much more integrated community. There are too many recent examples around the world of fragmented and increasingly polarized media outlets leading to increasingly fragmented and polarized communities. We see it happening all over the world and at all levels of society: countries, states, cities, schools, and even families.
One important way to improve integration and resist polarization is with improved and shared communication of information. Our vision at Atencion is for us to act as San Miguel’s “town square” to bring all parts of our community closer together through the sharing of information.
In just the past few months, we have:
1. Increased by 5X the number of writers / collaborators contributing to our newspaper
2. Doubled the number of locations where our printed newspaper can be found
3. Increased the monthly views of our printed newspaper by 4X to over 25,000 per month
4. Developed a new bilingual website to reach a broader audience—increasing our website views by 7X to almost 30,000 per month
5. Developed a strong social media presence across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter —increasing our views by 20X to over 2.7 million views in just this past month.
6. Launched a weekly Spanish language radio show / podcast (in cooperation with the local University Instituto Sanmiguelense) in which we review / discuss / debate the week´s top local news stories.
A world-class city such as ours needs a well-informed and integrated community that has a common understanding of the challenges and opportunities before us as well as one that feels comfortable communicating its ideas and concerns. Our team at Atencion is working very hard every day to be a strong, responsible partner with you in this shared journey. Please check us out via our paper edition, on our website, or on social media and join us in the debate and discussion.
Thank you for your support!
Travis Bembenek
President & Publisher
Atención San Miguel
