The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.
Thursday, 17 October 1991 10:30 AM Diario Latino
We are inside a huge warehouse which serves as both offices and plant for Diario Latino, the only progressive newspaper in El Salvador. A gigantic press dominates the main floor. Partitions section off the office area, but there are no enclosed rooms. We are invited to climb a fire escape stairway to a second-level balcony, where there is additional office space, and are seated in a circle in the open space at the top of the stairway, surrounding Francisco Valencio, the director of the newspaper.
It is apparent that Wanda is in her element here, and we gladly defer to her to make the introductions and lead the discussion on behalf of our group. Señor Valencio thanks us for our visit and explains the newspaper's philosophy.
"We see our role as a newspaper to accompany our people in support of the interests that all our people share for peace and democracy. All these are things that the people have lacked because of the military governments, especially recently since the counter-insurgency.
"We owe much to the support from the churches, especially the Lutheran Church. Last Tuesday we published Medardo's speech at the conference. In this way we can unite the work of all the churches. [Medardo Gomez, Lutheran Bishop of El Salvador] We have the objective of supporting all of the churches in the country which gave spiritual accompaniment to the people during the war.
"Diario Latino has been directed by the workers since 1 July 1989. When the newspaper was abandoned by its previous directors, we as workers decided to organize ourselves and take up the work of the newspaper. At first our motive was just to preserve our jobs. But as we organized, we developed a new way of carrying news in El Salvador. We call this journalism of commitment to the people and to the reality of our country. In this way we implanted in our journalism political and ideological pluralism. This work assured us of support from diverse sectors of the country. We are seen as the most important newspaper in the country and are contacted by visiting diplomats and delegations who come here.
"This work has continued despite the attempt against us on 9 February 1991. (Their offices and press were fire-bombed.) Thanks to international solidarity, repairs were made at quite an accelerated rate. We are up to 80% of the capacity that we had before the attack.
"We received very courageous and valuable aid. This confirmed the value of the work that we are doing and said to us that we are on the right path. We think that news needs to be in the vanguard of and serve all aspects of what will be needed at the end of the war. We are preparing for the post-war arena. The role of the media will be critical. We want to be on the front line in this work.
"It has not been easy. Yesterday we sent a letter to Ponce, outlining our concerns about the death threats that the night watch here have been receiving. We are asking for better security around this neighborhood. I tell you this because many people who are opposed to democracy are going to make attempts to derail the peace process here.
"As we have had eleven years of war, we must make every effort to support democracy and peace. This is our primary platform. We achieve this with international support.
"In the same way that there are threats against the church, there are also threats against other sectors of the country. To the extent that the media support the people, the media are also threatened. For this reason we ask for solidarity and interest in our work."
Question: Will you please explain what happened in the attack.
"At 3:00 AM that morning there were fire bombs and explosive bombs thrown into our installation. Fifty per cent of the machinery was destroyed. The control units for the press were partially destroyed, and the layout area was a total loss. The press was repaired by the UES [University of El Salvador], which sent over fifty workers from the engineering department, mostly graduate students. The controls had to be rebuilt. While we were undertaking the repairs, the newspaper was put out in the workshops at the UES.
"There were no injuries because we had no watch people at that time. We do not think that the investigation that the government undertook had any depth or seriousness. They concluded that we blew up our own offices! They advanced three theories. The first was that we did it so that we could collect the insurance. We never had any insurance, so then they said that we had received instructions from the opposition parties because an incident such as this would help the leftist parties in the elections. After the election Aronson himself said that the bombing was an order that the FMLN gave to make the military look bad. The attack occurred just one month before the elections, which were held on 10 March 1991."
Question: Why did the former owners leave?
"This is the oldest newspaper in Central America. We will be 101 on 5 November. During the 1980's when the Christian Democrats came to power, they wanted to build a media organ. Mr. __ (a leading Christian Democrat) borrowed millions of dollars to buy 51% of the newspaper's stock. He supposedly borrowed to make the investment, but the funds were diverted. By 1 July 1989 Diario Latino had accumulated over one million colones in debt. Besides this, the Christian Democrats were repudiated by all sectors of society, and with them the newspaper was also repudiated. It had had a circulation of twenty thousand, but it was down to twelve hundred in the first quarter of 1989. So because of the rejection of the public and the mounting debt, it was abandoned. They just walked away and left everything, outside of any legal framework of bankruptcy. They didn't pay us for our last paychecks.
"We already had a union, so we took advantage of the organization in place and decided that we would administer the operation. We are still in the midst of legal battles over all of this. When the previous owner learned that we had paid back over a half million colones of the debt and were receiving international support, he tried to come back in and take the equipment. But we think we have good potential to win our case in court.
"Our circulation is now 15,000. It had been 10,000 just before the attack. Afterwards it was reduced to six to seven thousand. We do a press run of 18,000 on Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays, when we have special sections. There is a sports section on Monday, focus on youth on Friday, and a cultural supplement on Saturday.
"One thing that has caused us problems is reporting on the Moakley investigations. [Congressman John Joseph “Joe” Moakley, a Democratic representative from Massachusetts, led extensive investigations into the 1989 murders of the Jesuits at the Romero Center and into other human rights violations in El Salvador.] We have published three reports since February 1990. Because of this the military says that we are part of an international communist conspiracy to discredit the military.
"We have not been able to undertake our own investigative reporting because of fear. When international journalists do investigations, they leave the country before the articles are published, so they are out of danger. But we don't have the ability to leave the country; we have no safe country to which we can go. We are also limited because the national government doesn't cooperate with the national press. So we republish articles from the international press.
"These are delicate articles which raise the consciousness of the people. We believe that this has supported the negotiation process. Last year at this time to talk about purging the army was a sin, but we thought that discussion was necessary. So we were the first to write articles about purging the armed forces."
Question: How does your circulation compare to the other newspapers?
"La Prensa Rapida and Diario de Hoy, the two morning papers, are about 60,000 combined. Of the other afternoon papers, one is about 15,000 and the other, El Mundo, is even less."
Question: Are you on Associated Press?
"We get German and Italian news services, also Salpress. There is cooperation between us and AP journalists. Sometimes AP will give us photos when they go out to the front. We get good cooperation from the international press.
"We don't get sufficient advertising to put out a larger press run. Before the attack we had nothing. Most of our support is in paid ads from the popular movement. So when the popular movement has no money, we will have to shut down."
Question: What are your rates?
"I think about a thousand colones for a half page ad. (It is apparent that this is not his area!) Ours are about 50% less than La Prensa Rapida.
"We have a sales department, but it is very difficult to build consciousness for businesses to place ads with us. We've had boycotts against us, even boycotts against our getting raw materials. Banks will not give us loans to import materials. There were times when the businesses which deliver paper would say that they had no paper for Diario Latino. We had to go to the other papers to sell us clandestinely the raw materials that we need.
"One of the miracles that happened is that a business brought in paper from abroad and deposited it with us. We pay for it as we use it."
Question: How many workers do you have?
"There are ninety in all – sixty who work here in the facility and thirty who deliver the paper."
Question: (From Gary) Your cartoonist is noteworthy.
"He is a man who comes out of the popular organizations. He does the cartooning clandestinely because his cartoons have strong political content. We protect his identity. He says things through his characters that we cannot say in our editorials."
Question: Do you publish speeches by members of other sectors of society, or just from the church?
"Yes, we publish articles from the Chamber of Commerce. We will carry things from the death squads and business organizations. For instance, we have received communications from death squads, and we publish them. Last week we had a statement from the Ministry of Defense about how they are going to investigate the FMLN. We also publish communiques from the FMLN, more of these than from the army. This is not necessarily because we support them, but we receive a lot of materials from them.
"We have been criticized for being a platform for the left. We affirm that this is true. Historically the press has served the elite. The poor were ignored. We hope to be a paper more in the service of those sectors of society which have been ignored."
Following our conversation we are given a tour of the installation. He shows us the control box for the press and explains how the student engineers had to take apart the one undamaged control unit in order to copy it and replace the other seven in the box. The damaged equipment has been dragged into a back corner of the building and piled in a heap, half-melted computer terminals resting on top of charred and twisted office furniture. The press is quiet for the moment, but coming off of the end is a page of comic strips, on which I recognize Frank and Ernest. Presiding over the entryway is a shrine to the Virgin Mary, a reminder of how pervasive and natural is the element of religious devotion in the everyday lives of the people.
Once again we have been taught about the importance of the act of accompaniment. Medardo risks his life to take part in marches because he believes that the task of the church is to accompany the people. Mirtala receives death threats because she has accompanied the residents of San Jose Las Flores as they denounce the murder of one of their children. And here we have a newspaper, run by its workers, which sees its role as the accompaniment of the people of society who have been ignored, who have no voice. It all seems so clear while we are here in El Salvador, yet so difficult a concept to explain to our friends and fellow church members who want to know why we continue to make these trips. We are a materialistic society, who find it easy to give things but very hard simply to give ourselves. How much we can learn from the people of El Salvador!
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