Turmoil continues at El Diario, the largest Spanish language daily in the country, which last week laid off 20 people only a few weeks after it unveiled a big editorial design overhaul that it hopes will attract more upscale readers.
While the Spanish speaking population has been growing rapidly, El Diario’s circulation has not.
The firings last Friday, which included eight workers covered by a Newspaper Guild contract, have drawn an angry rebuke from New York Guild President Bill O’Meara, who said the axings violated terms of its contract.
“impreMedia has followed through on its illegal threat to fire veteran journalists and try to replace them with nonunion staff,” O’Meara said. “Instead of investing in quality journalism at El Diario, the paper’s new management is trying to turn its back on its Guild staff and its own loyal readers.”
impreMedia, which also owns La Opinión, a Spanish language daily in Los Angeles, was taken over by the Buenos Aires, Argentina-based newspaper, La Nación, two years ago.
Oscar Hernandez, the Guild representative, said one impreMedia executive called El Diario in its previous format, a “ghetto newspaper” aimed at inner-city urban readers.
Hernandez said that the executive told him the new owners want to move away from the Puerto Rican, Dominican and Mexican readers that were its traditional base and court more upscale South American readers.
“That hurt,” said Hernandez, who is Puerto Rican himself.
impreMedia CEO Francisco Seghezzo had not returned a call for comment by presstime. A company spokeswoman said the company was declining to comment at this point.