GR EXTRA!

Daily Sun celebrates 1st year with online presence

Jose Alvarado Vega and Michelle Kantrow Vazquez, Daily Sun staff

20 Nov 2009

The Guild Reporter

It was a year ago today that a group of 90 locked‑out newspaper professionals showed its entrepreneurial spirit by launching the Puerto Rico Daily Sun – which is not only the island’s only English‑language daily newspaper but the first local daily to be run by a workers’ cooperative.

During its first 12 months, the Daily Sun has weathered one of the worst recessions in the island’s history to gain recognition and respect in what was already a tough local media market. This has had much to do with the newspaper’s break with the usual business strategy as well as to its aim of providing objective and quality journalism. With newspapers throughout the United States laying off employees and shutting down, the Daily Sun bucked the trend by adopting a break‑even, cooperative economic model, in contrast to the industry’s profit‑driven corporate model.

The newspaper’s first year is just the latest milestone for a publication run by the Cooperativa Prensa Unida workers’ cooperative — founded by locked‑out employees of the defunct San Juan Star who joined the island’s thriving $8.5 billion cooperative movement. The daily’s employees have purchased shares in the co‑op and have participated in its first annual assembly earlier this year, where they voted for the election of officials and discussed business matters.

The venture received critical backing from the Union of Journalists, Graphic Artists and Related Fields, or UPAGRA, the Newspaper Guild and the League of Cooperatives as well as the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, the former Cooperative Development Administration and the Small Business Administration.

Publication of the Daily Sun "is a heroic feat that should be imitated. We need more people like you,” said Melvin Carrión Rivera, head of the newly created Cooperative Development Commission of Puerto Rico, which replaced the Cooperative Development Administration.

The cooperative model has allowed the newspaper to grow in circulation and quality. Since its launching in October 2008, the newspaper’s circulation has tripled to 30,000 copies daily, seven days a week. The publication — printed at Canóvanas‑based Accurate Printers — is sold at more than 1,300 points of sale, including traffic lights and retail establishments in all 78 municipalities, according to information certified by Distribution Integrated Services Inc. The Daily Sun is also sold in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

While the publication is young, its staff of reporters and photojournalists is experienced and, over the past year, has demonstrated its ability to pursue stories, earning several awards for their work. In June, the Puerto Rico Photojournalists Association bestowed honorary mentions to photographers Francesca von Rabenau O’Reilly and Humberto Trías. Reporter Xavira Neggers earned the award for best spot news reporting from the Overseas Press Club in August. Earlier in the year, the newspaper’s Economy team received a special recognition from the Small Business Administration, for reporting on relevant issues to that segment of
society.

The Daily Sun venture was also the focus of reports in the Miami Herald and Editor & Publisher earlier this year.

“We are committed to continue offering serious reporting to benefit our island, offering a real alternative to our readers and advertisers,” said Puerto Rico Daily Sun Executive Editor Marisol Lora Cruz. “I must congratulate all of the employees of the Puerto Rico Daily Sun for their effort and courage to develop this project. I am grateful to each one of them, as well as to all of the people who in one way or another have supported us during this first year,” she added.

Late last month, the Daily Sun marked another first, with the launching of its much‑anticipated Web site [www.prdailysun.com]  which offers readers — on the island and abroad — updated information to complement the print version of the newspaper.

“The Daily Sun is entering into a second phase of its presence in Puerto Rico as a key news information vehicle,” said Daily Sun Editor Rafael Matos. “We are now working with the digital edition which will give the Daily Sun and its readers, editors, reporters, photographers and advertisers a news window about Puerto Rico, on a global scale.”