Uruguay, Montevideo: La diaria
La diaria is a leftist project, independent from political parties. It wants to show what is needed for good social relationships and emancipation.
The editors. Bild: La diaria
We are a leftist project, independent from political parties. We try to challenge the hegemony of information and opinion and to set a diffenrent agenda with quality journalism.We want to show what is needed for good social relationships and emancipation. We stand for a soldary and sustainable development. We want to show the realities of exclusion, hierarchies and collusiveness, because they threaten democracy.
Our selling figures have been rising steadily. In the beginning we have been selling 1.050 copies, today we sell 7.426 daily. For two years now we are the second biggest newspaper in Uruguay, although we are the only one that works without financial backup from big companies.
The distribution system in Uruguay is monopolistic, we decided in the very beginning that we would not take part in that system. In the regions, where the monopol is working, La diaria can only be received by subscribtion. We have very little paid advertisement from the privat or the governmental sector.
Our readers are those sociocultural groups that traditionally have used newspapers a lot but have been disregarding to do so. We have many more young readers than our competition.
What makes us different from others
Our high quality of journalism, our high attention to photojournalism, the ironic headlines. We offer independent coverage and opinions that raise questions about social, political and economic questions that other newspapers do not even mention. Out cultural section does not look only on profit-focused culture and offers deep analysis. We have a humoristic section that demonstrates the absurdity of the world. We have 115 employes, 42 of them work in the distribution.
Our biggest achievement is that we grew bigger than any other newspaper. We prooved that a self-governed enterprise can create products of high quality and with great popuarity.
The guaranty of our independence must grow. In order to achieve that we want to: 1. Increase the mnumber of our subscriptions to a level that the incomes cover our costs.
2. Build up capital to be able to start new activities realted to journalism( seminars, advertisement online, a monthly review, the participation in a TV-project). 3. Buy the building we are working in in order to save the rental fee.
We would like to increase the wages of our employees, so that they can work only for La diaria and do not have to worry about their economic well-being. Where we want to be in 5 years: We want to keep applying our journalistic standards, are self-governed and have a stable financial basis in order to be independant.
The Cooperative Society
From the very beginning we agreed, that the most important decisions regarding our newspaper have to be made by its employees. We do that, because we think that the left has to live the modells it is proposing for society. We founded our cooperative society in 2010 with 26 members. The capital of the society are debts towards its empleyees - wages that have not been paid in the beginning.
That means, there is no actual capital, the capital is the ownership of La diaria itself. For a year now we have been able to keep the balance between incomes and costs and to pay the interests for debts we have, but not to reduce the debts.
The general assembly is the highest authority of the society. She elects the board of directors and can change all their decisions. Only employees of La diaria are members of the society.
All editors, photografers and correctors get the same wage, only those who have a position with responsibility get a little more. For all other employees the wages are graded.The first thing we would like to do is buy the building we are working in order to keep the rental fee and to be able to get credits more easily.