NEWS360
Eldiario.es was founded by Ignacio Escolar in 2012, when an unemployed group of journalists decided to join because of the 2008 crisis. Ignacio Escolar had originally a blog called Escolar.es and as he says, he paid for the domain of eldiario.es for many years until the official foundation of the newspaper. That was when he and his partners started ElDiario.es we know nowadays.
They defend that “the society needs independent and professional information”, and so, the kind of journalism they perform is transparent and willing to give a voice to all people. As an online media, in order to sustain themselves, they ask their readers to subscribe monthly, preserving the ideal that they are paying to spread information, as well as contributing to rigorous journalism and having social values. Moreover, Eldiario.es has become one of the most important online media in Spain, not because of their size or history but because of their relevance when it comes to investigative journalism. Despite its short history, the newspaper has been decisive in discovering corruption cases such as the ones concerning Cristina Cifuentes, as well as the most recent one, involving the partner of the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso.
EVERY CONTENT FOR FREE
Once you enter the initial page of eldiario.es it is possible to see that there are no limits when it comes to accessing information.
Unlike more traditional newspapers such as El País or El Mundo, most of the content that the newspaper offers is not limited to members, but is open to anyone who wants to be informed. There are only limitations when it comes to reading Ignacio Escolar's columns, opinion articles or newsletter, which depending on the importance of the topic may even be available without paying a subscription. But if you can access almost all of the newspaper's content without having to pay a subscription, where does the income come from then? The answer is readers' trust in journalists.
This confidence is cultivated step by step, first it is possible to see that at the end of every article eldiario.es leaves a message to their daily million readers: “We need your economic support to make rigorous and with social values journalism”. This idea is reaffirmed when they described the benefits of being a subscriber: “Behind elDiario.es there is no big enterprise, no political favor nor debts with banks”. Perhaps this mention of social values and independence can give a hinge to the readers what editorial line they will find when they continue reading.
Among all the innovations that the newspaper might have brought to different areas of the profession, the most relevant one is the business model. As Ignacio Escolar says in the interview he gave us: “our business model is based on convincing people that the journalism we do is worth paying for”.
“Our business model is based on convincing people that the journalism we do is worth paying for”
This way the newspaper raises awareness of the importance of their job and appeals to the reader to support the profession and the people that work in the newsroom. In exchange to a mensual fee, instead of offering access to the daily news they give a social service that is translated into decisive investigation and the control of the power. Moreover if we take a general look at the content we can’t see any SEO content such as “how many ministers does Russia have?” or “the 5 things you must visit in Madrid”. Instead the content is based on in-depth interviews or features about current situations, as well as the hard news that appears at the front page.
For Ignacio Escolar, the director of the newspaper this is a sample philosophy: “We have always thought that building audiences based on search engine results is short-sighted. The algorithm now points here, then
points there. It's a bit like trying to erect a building on a promenade. Then the water comes and knocks it down.”
"We have always thought that building audiences based on search engine results is short sighted"
ElDiario.es currently has over 80.000 subscribers and more than a million daily readers. The newspaper offers three different types of fees. Every fee gives access to: limited access to all content and exclusive articles, the personal release of Ignacio Escolar, no ads, an advance for members, events and a digital and paper print trimestral magazine.
Evolution of people with memberships in ElDiario.es
There are different fee plans: a mensual subscription with a cost of 8€, a 40€ annual subscription and a 70€ subscription that includes all the podcasts platform Podimo content. According to the 2023 balance we can see that more than a half of their income came from announcements in 2022. But almost 5 million euros came from the subscribers. We could say that the strategy and business model of the newspaper is working since the number of memberships has a continuous growth since its foundation until 2023.
The premise of achieving the readers confidence when it comes to rigorous and free information is successful. And this is possible to see in the huge growth of 20.000 members in 2020, the time when disinformation was spreaded all over the world and when everyone doubted the credibility of media and news on the internet. Perhaps these are small numbers for the traditional media.
Evolution of ElDiario.es's income. Source: ElDiario.es
However, it is important to keep in mind that elDiario.es has existed for only 10 years in a landscape of rigorous independence.
AN INTERNATIONAL GLANCE
Eldiario.es is mostly a politics focused newspaper but they also have a modest but productive international section. The main members are, Andrés Gil the Chief of International and two foreign correspondents Irene Castro in Brussels and Maria Ramírez in UK who covers US information as well. They also have other workers that write in the International section and Desalambre. We talked with Irene Castro, foreign correspondent in Brussels, her articles are among the most read of Eldiario.es. We thought her view of Eldiario.es will give us a new approach to the previous interviews of how it is to work for Eldiario.es, being a correspondent and how the international section of this newspaper works.
She told us that working for Eldiario.es being a correspondent is not so different from working for other media but its financial model gives her peace of mind and a motivation since she feels the support of the reader. Regarding the things she covers, she told us that because of their financial model and the independence it provides to them they are capable of informing about international affairs from a more left-wing view that legacy media cannot do and that is as well what makes their work different from other media that have more resources to cover these topics.
Apart from this they have a special section called Desalambre focused on migratory information. This section was born with the intention to give a different approach to international affairs focusing on Spain's migration policy and information on migration crises. They also have an agreement with The Guardian, the British newspaper, to show their content in Spanish to their users. This is possible because they have a similar financial model and values, but it is a handicap for Eldiario.es to attract more users and they have more international content that comes from The Guardian, which has more resources.
The editorial line is specially marked by the contents they prioritize to cover, in the case of Irene she told us that the information she covers the most according to this is related with foreign Spanish politics. But she also covers the European Union information. On the other hand, the existence of Desalambre section shows a specific worry for the migratory crises which means they consider it more important and they put a special effort to cover it for editorial reasons.
DIFFERENT FORMATS IN JOURNALISM
Eldiario.es has a large presence in social media. Igancio Escolar explains their presence in social media as “brand presence” with the headline and pictures displayed on their page they explain the information on their description.
This way when people need to know about an issue that affects them “They go and look for it in the newspaper because they already know it”. Escolar told us that in an age where “the algorithm has decided is the most interesting for you” their approach to their media is framed for people who have a different approach and that what happens in politics affects them, it is emancipated people, he told us: “Suddenly corruption is no longer something that affects your morals, but your pocket”. ElDiario.es has a large following on both Twitter and Instagram, in the former their followers go up to 1.4 Million. Escolar himself has around 1 million.
ElDiario.es have one of the most successful podcasts in Spain. It is Un Tema al Día, presented by co-director and co-founder Juanlu Sánchez. Every day ElDiario.es releases a 15 minute episode in which Sanchez speaks in-depth with an expert, usually from eldiario.es, about a topic that is relevant in the time of release, or that might be interesting for their listeners. The podcast has already exceeded one million listens per month and is ‘among the top 1% most listened to’ of the platform's entire international offering, according to Spotify. It has been listened to on Spotify from 102 countries. The majority of listeners are in Spain, Germany, Argentina, Mexico and the UK.
ROLES IN THE MEDIA
Roles in the media are very important, nowadays the workforce of Eldiario.es is formed by approximately 200 employees. More than a hundred have full-time jobs at the newsroom and they also count with internships. However, Eldiario.es is a news media in continuous growth thanks to the memberships of the readers.
Ignacio Escolar- CEO and director. Esther Palomera- deputy director Jose Precedo-deputy director
Ignacio Escolar, is the director of the company and is accompanied by reputated journalists like Esther Palomera and Jose Precedo, among others. They all have a constant presence in TV and media and are called to give the version of ElDiario.es. But there is a huge team of well-known journalists that you cana also read from like: Juan Luis Sánchez, Iñigo Sáenz de Ugarte, Andrés Gil, Luz Sanchis, Natalia Chientaroli, Olga Rodríguez, Neus Tomàs, Gumersindo Lafuente and Ander Iñaki Oliden, they are also co-owners of the company. As gestors of the company José Sanclemente (president of digital media), Rosalía Lloret (CEO) and Joan Checa as general director.
Among the different departments they have people working on society, politics, international news, economy, edition, cover, networks and newsletters. Also in culture, opinion, data, clear consumption, era and travel. Nacho Ochando is the one in charge of directing the video editing and Sara Rosati in the advertising department.
TARGET AUDIENCES
This news media is mainly focused on economy and politics. It is based on an independent and free way of doing journalism. It is a national outlet so its main target audience is Spanish people. Studies have shown that the main public is from Madrid (30%) and then from Barcelona (25%). Among the audience the range of age that mostly consume information coming from this media is people between 25 and 60 years old. Normally it is directed to medium class or lower class people. It is interesting to know that the majority of readers are men although it is a journal directed to both: women and men.
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM
One of the main reasons why ElDiario.es is known is their journalistic investigations. The most relevant ones have been the Cifuentes case and most recently the Ayuso investigation, in which they discovered that Alberto González Amador, Isabel Díaz Ayuso's partner, defrauded the Treasury between 2020 and 2021. He is accused of two offenses of tax fraud and another of false documentation.
The President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, with her partner, Alberto González Amador, in 2023. Lagencia Press
José Precedo, deputy director of Eldiario.es, as well as one of the people who signed the last investigation spoke to us about how they work in investigations.
In investigation cases they look for the base and then discover other links to give context to that base: “In this case (Ayuso’s partner case), we have taken the complaint from the public prosecutor's office once it reached the court and the Treasury report, but not everything is included in these reports. In other words, these reports give you a lot of information, but above all they give you many clues to look for other links.”
"Reports give you a lot of information, but above all they give you many clues to look for other links"
In the investigation they have people who are experts in every area that the investigation might cover. For example, in the Ayuso case: they had “a political agent, a court agent and an economic agent who is skilled or has a good command of the commercial register databases, who knows how to search the land registry, etc.” All of them “work in a network with a Telegram group created just for the investigation, where everyone contributes. Then they put things in common, in meetings”. In the earlier meetings they decide when they are going to release the information and at what pace they will add additional information. In the case of Ayuso: “we decided, before the first meeting, which issues, which deliveries we were going to give at the beginning” They also rely a lot on other links: "it also has a lot to do with the reaction of the other party. As they react, they give us clues about things to look at. (…) Let's say that you don't have the paper, you start looking at it for a few days and you make deliveries, you make 20 deliveries, but you prepare 3 or 4 deliveries and then, as it is already a team working in a network, as the explanations come out from the other side, we look for more stories.”“
But the most important reasons why ElDiario.es is able to make investigative journalism is independence, it is vital for them to investigate whatever they want “you need economic independence to withstand the pressures because there are pressures”. However this also makes them be more careful in making mistakes: “if you make a mistake and they file a complaint and condemn you and demand compensation, this is an additional problem.”
"You need economic independence to withstand the pressures, because there are pressures"
There are many people that “there is no such thing as investigative journalism, this is just leaks.” But instead of what the critics or (manipulators) say “if you get a paper, you can publish the paper, or you can publish the paper and look for a lot of other data that may be related, that are not visible to the naked eye, and for that you need research”.
So how do they face this? The answer is simple: “with data”. Or is it? even Precedo agreed that journalism is having a “crisis of credibility (…) because of fake news, with disinformation campaigns”. Those latter ones are the ones that Eldiario.es have to deal with the most. In this case, the Popular Party has been spreading fake news, with Ayuso saying for example that it was a campaign against her partner, and therefore against her. She even said that it was the treasury, the one that owed her partner money. They fight these claims with data, for example after Ayuso said that they “published the email in which her partner acknowledges the crimes”. However, “there will always be absolute defenders of Ayuso or any other party who won't believe anything you publish, but you can't do anything about that.” Eldiario.es "are always investigating and trying to bring out stories" so it is not crazy to think that right now, they have something else to shake Spanish politics once again.
EDITORIAL LINE
El diario.es has found success with its progressive and critical point of view towards right-wing parties. Leaning towards the left and even aligned with republican positions, this outlet asserts that it does not work for any particular part nor organization, as its director explains, "All newspapers have an editorial line. The key is when you turn your newspaper into something serving a party or organization. That is something we will never do under any circumstances." Providing information and strong opinions, the values that prevail in eldiario.es are rigorous, independent, and honest journalism. Seeking to defend rights, equality, and democracy, their primary goal is always to uphold the truth.
Despite the critics they have received for being too leftist they have a very important element that is worth mentioning. In 2023 Eldiario.es elaborated a document that works as an agreement for everyone involved in the newspaper which is called El estatuto de Eldiario. It explains what the newspaper as a whole, its directors, its journalists and also its subscribers are committed to. It was approved by all the parts through a votation, including the suscribers. It works as a sort of internal Constitution and it explains in detail their editorial line, their business model and everyone's rights and duties regarding the newspaper. The agreement is also binding and non-compliance may lead to action by the newspaper. This is also a way of involving the subscriber deeper in the newspaper and that is because it is one of the most important parts of Eldiario, for that reason they also have a say in this.
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