The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unveiled its new Spanish-language news page on Septemer 18, 2020, which consolidates the global faith’s 18 Newsrooms from Latin America, thereby providing a unified experience in sharing information with Spanish speakers around the world.
The website — noticias.laiglesiadejesucristo.org — publishes news articles about the Church for the general public (including Latter-day Saints) and is the official Church news source for news media organizations.
In coming days, the page will include a section showcasing news of special interest to Latter-day Saints. The existing country-specific Church Newsroom pages in Spanish will be redirected to the new Spanish-language news page.
“As part of this new website, we have incorporated technology that detects a person’s location upon visiting the website, so the experience they have while navigating the page is local and feels familiar to a Mexican, Peruvian, Dominican, Guatemalan or whichever country they’re connecting from. This means that people will see prioritized content from their country according to the detected location,” said David Parra, of the Church’s Information and Communication Services Department.
Parra explained that upon accessing the site, users will have the ability to select additional country options from a drop-down menu and choose specific location content they wish to experience, which “will give the audience total autonomy to control what they want to see, according to their interests.”
Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles chairs the Church Communications Committee and said the consolidation helps to more effectively share the messages of the gospel of Jesus Christ while allowing areas to highlight local activities and priorities.
“This follows direction given by Church President Russell M. Nelson,” Rasband said. “More than one-third of our membership speaks Spanish as their first language, and having a consolidated channel to distribute news of the Church aligns well with the First Presidency’s desire to simplify the tools that we use. It helps us to better communicate with one voice.”
An editorial governance committee of Church Communication Department representatives from different areas in Latin America, plans, produces and publishes the channel’s content. The Church is creating a similar Newsroom consolidation strategy for other languages and countries in various regions throughout the world, where practical.
Church Newsrooms Around the World
Today, Newsroom is comprised of a global Church Newsroom in English that was created in early 2000. The English-language website publishes news of interest to the general public (which includes a significant Latter-day Saint audience), journalists and friends of the faith. The channel is administrated by the Church Communications Department at Church Headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah.
With the consolidation of the Spanish sites, there are now 65 additional sites in 28 languages generating local content.
Since 2011, and prior to this consolidation strategy, international Church Newsrooms have been created where the Church is experiencing more growth.