El Diario Paper Closes After Its Money Runs Out

El Diario de Los Angeles, one of the city’s three Spanish-language daily newspapers, stopped publication over the weekend after struggling for 2 1/2-years to win readers and advertisers.

Attorney Jose Mariano Castillo, who represents the paper’s Mexican owners, said on Monday that efforts to find new investors will continue, but he holds little hope for raising the necessary money.

“They hope that it will be restarted again as soon as they can get refinancing,” Castillo said of the owners. “I don’t see that happening right now. I don’t want anybody to get their hopes up.”

Castillo said El Diario published its last edition Saturday and laid off 24 employees, including the paper’s editorial staff. The company will continue to operate as a printing press, he said.

El Diario’s owners invested about $3 million to start up operations as the region’s third Spanish-language daily. The paper competed against La Opinion, Los Angeles’ largest Spanish-language daily, and Noticias del Mundo, owned by a company controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.

Plans called for the paper to begin turning a profit within a year. Instead, El Diario circulation topped out at 30,000 and never managed to attract significant amounts of advertising. The paper filed for bankruptcy earlier this year and was losing about $60,000 a month, according to executives.

The paper even appealed to its readers for help, asking them to buy the paper at news stands and attend fund raisers. But the efforts apparently fell short.

“They just ran out of money,” Castillo said. “There were some very dedicated employees there who struggled a lot. I hope it comes back again.”