The letter to its readers published by El Diario-La Prensa on Tuesday, the day the Spanish-language daily arrived at its 90th birthday, was as unusual as it was honest.

"Mistakes must be admitted so we can learn from them," said the letter, written in Spanish and signed by Douglas Knight and John Paton of the Canadian Knight Paton Media, one of the investors that bought El Diario in July, and Rossana Rosado, the Bronx-born longtime publisher of the paper.

The mistake they were talking about was their decision to spike a column about education in Cuba written by Fidel Castro - a decision that prompted Gerson Borrero, El Diario's editor, to resign in protest on Sept. 29. It became news all over the country, and created a stir in the Latino community, used as it is to finding all kinds of opinions in the country's oldest Spanish-language paper.

Marta Garcia, a local leader of the Hispanic Media Coalition, a national watchdog organization, met with Knight and Rosado on Oct. 15 at the paper's office, and was positively elated about Tuesday's letter. Garcia was joined by a group of community leaders and activists worried about censorship.

"I think it's great what they ran today in El Diario," she said over the phone. "And the fact that it was published the day of the paper's 90th anniversary makes it even more significant."

The letter did not come as a surprise. Actually, it had been agreed upon during last week's conversations with, besides Garcia, Angelo Falcon and Myra Estepa of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund; Felix Matos, director of the Center of Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College; Laura Irizarry of the Office of Puerto Rico in New York, and others. The participants had come out of the meeting in an upbeat mood.

"Doors were open for a dialogue," Garcia said at the time, "and we agreed on every one of the points we brought up."

"We messed up badly; we made a terrible mistake," is how, in that meeting, Knight described the decision to suppress Castro's column.

Garcia also told those present that he intended to keep El Diario's tradition of independence and of opening its pages to many different ideas. He was even agreeable to the formation of a community advisory board.

According to Garcia, Knight also stated that he liked the idea of running pieces written by Latin American leaders, including the most controversial. Knight and Paton said that they had been under the mistaken impression that the Cuban leader was to become a regular columnist.

As some readers may remember, El Diario had been promoting Castro's column for several days, and three Cuban-American employees of the Spanish daily had mounted a campaign against its publication. They had enlisted some of their compatriots in Miami and people like Cuban-born musician Paquito D'Rivera in New York, who threatened to boycott El Diario. Yet, according to Garcia, Knight denied that killing Castro's column was a response to political pressure.

"He said they did it because they want more local columns," Garcia said.

Whatever the case may be, the letter to the community is a clear promise that El Diario's tradition of diversity will be respected.

Garcia, happy as she was, wanted to make it clear that neither she nor the other people at the meeting were extending a blank check to El Diario.

"Only actions will determine if El Diario still deserves the respect and support of the community," she said.

» back to all media coverage articles

About Clarity | Our Team | Portfolio | In the News | LP Resources | Contact Us

©2004 Clarity Partners, LP | design by Impend