AL DÍA has been, above all, an act of Independent Journalism.

But also inevitably, an act of Entrepreneurship — if only to make that initial act of Independent Journalism possible.

Here at AL DÍA, we are living proof that we —originally naive journalists—  can also train ourselves and succeed at convincing businesses that our act of journalism can also work in their favor. 

And, as a byproduct, this joint venture could also perform what lawyers call an “Act of God”:

Preserving Independent Journalism, and, as consequence, keeping alive Democrac in America.

This is the Bottom line: Business Development and Journalism are two halves joined by the hip: One cannot do without the other.

Business Development and Journalism are two halves joined at the hip and one cannot do without the other, fighting as they are in the trenches of a struggling industry in America today: 

News Media.

Here at AL DÍA News Media, for example, we will have the opportunity to give you even better journalism in the months and years to come when we earn new and real business from our biggest corporations in town and across the States and, as a result, we command the capability of adding many more able hands to our multicultural newsroom.

We all live in a multicultural America, as the Census 2020 just proved again, one where the only journalism possible is what we call in AL DÍA “Cross-cultural Journalism.”

The demise of the legacy news media — which will only get worse in the years to come— has been the direct result of the simple fact:

At some point, the so-called “bean counters” took over the whole operation. 

While the writers —busy as they were writing their great copy— didn’t realize their original intellectual pursuit of writing, and the journalistic enterprise they lent their precious talents to, was flipped upside down by those accountants and their owners (sometimes huge corporations) only concerned with keeping the profit margins over 25%.

Entrepreneurial Journalism, in AL DÍA’s book, is one way to start reversing that process that led to the most obscene accumulation of wealth in the name of Freedom of Expression.

We believe that the only private business in America protected by an amendment of the U.S. Constitution must remain accountable to the public, as much as, let's say, WHHY in Phildelphia, or The Inquirer, now owned by a non-profit institution founded by the late Gerry Lenfest, the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.

We believe that the only private business in America protected by an amendment of the U.S. Constitution must remain accountable to the public, as much as, let's say, WHHY in Phildelphia, or The Inquirer, now owned by a non-profit institution founded by the late Gerry Lenfest, the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.

Dear colleagues in the newsroom: Never let the salesmen, accountants, donors, and CEOs, call all the shots in your news organizations.

You are the core team entrusted to uphold free speech, the beauty of writing, the flow of ideas in the public realm through that writing, and to guarantee at the end there will be an appreciation for freedom of speech, and the respect of somebody else's right to express their opinion without fear.

Ultimately, that the cornerstone of our Democracy, placed there by our nation's founding fathers —Freedom of the Press— will be there tomorrow, as it has been there successfully for the past 250 years.

It is the universal principle of Freedom of Expression enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, now adopted by the entire world,  even in places where authoritarian regimes rule. Even dictators claim, following the spirit of the revolution born in Philadelphia in 1776, that the people's right to speak up is fundamental in society.

Nothing can be more serious and precious than that mission, fellow writers of daily journalism who make your living one stroke of the keyboard at a time.

We all know as Nelson Poynter did, —down of all places in Tampa, Florida— that to overlook that will cause the eventual demise, not only of the right to disagree, of independent newsrooms to exist, and, therefore, the possibilities of the public to learn the facts from independent writers.

As Alberto Ibargüen, president of the Knight Foundation in Miami, FL, will say it best, as the good lawyer he is:

It is Democracy —sometimes strident but most of the time civil, and all the time preferable to war—is what is sat take here.

The recommendations from the Knight Commission Report ordered by Ibargüen's institution on the subject, are crystal clear: 

What we are running the risk of losing is the preservation of Independent Media, Journalism as we know it, and, ultimately, Democracy in America, as we know here.

Journalists: “The Wealth is Yours,” believe me. "Take it!"

Entrepreneurial Journalism is one clear path to pursue that, as it was at the beginning of the press in America, where writers got the first newspapers hot off the press by themselves.

That is why today, prestigious institutions such as CUNY, in NYC,  under the direction of Professor Jeff Jarvis (former Wall Street Journal Editor), has now a Graduate Program in the newly created academic discipline: Entrepreneurial Journalism,  no different from how we teach in the AL DÍA News Media shop:

Everything is up for grabs, up to the imagination, the grit, and discipline of the 21st Century journalists.

Everything is up for grabs, up to the imagination, the grit, and discipline of the 21st Century journalists.

While the non-for-profit sector takes its time to implement its own recommendations, we can make our own contribution by learning how to “write very well with one hand (right or left hand, doesn’t matter)...

"...But making damn sure we hold on to the rail with the other…”