The absence of Latino voices in American news media today is disturbing, if not outright frightening. These needed voices are extremely scarce and often, completely non-existent. As the nation continues to see the growth of Latinos, its largest ethnic community, this endemic disparity has reached crisis proportions. This vast inequality must be addressed now as a key priority of an urgent and common call towards a more equitable evolution of the American media in the new century.
OUR MISSION:
To empower Latinos to tell their own story and tackle the inequity of Latino voices by giving disadvantaged young people the education and training opportunities they need to be not only the witness but also the storytellers of thehistory Latinos are making in America.
OUR GOAL:
To give disadvantaged High School, College Students and University Graduates the support and tools to increase their opportunities to be part of the media landscape in our city, region and country. To empower them with knowledge and practice in a unique multilingual, multimedia and multicultural newsroom.
OUR STORY:
We want to help colleges and universities attract, retain and further train new students from Latino and other under-represented communities in our unique multimedia, multicultural, multilingual and entrepreneurial journalism practice. Over the past two decades AL DIA —founded in 1994 by entrepreneurial journalists — has been a place where dozens of young individuals from Latino and multicultural communities of our nation have found the hard-to-come-by first step in the world of news media.
This critical experience has enabled them to bolster their careers with many continuing in the mainstream media, sometimes in multimedia departments, and where their multilingual, multicultural skills and overall business savvy is highly valued.
Alumni of AL DIA can be found today in media business development, media relations management, and also in government and corporate communications.
The AL DIA Education Foundation was established in 2010 by the staff of AL DIA News that saw an opportunity to offer the company’s unique journalistic and business expertise to help colleges and universities attract, retain and further train new students from the Latino and other under-represented communities in our unique multimedia, multicultural, multilingual and entrepreneurial journalism practice. Through the Foundation, we are now taking this effort to the next level, creating a unique ecosystem to continually help Latinos and young professionals of all backgrounds start careers in journalism, new media and media business management.
We now want to multiply the model in partnership with educational institutions truly interested in working towards this common purpose of diversifying the voices in the media by empowering this new generation of diverse graduates, and include the American Latino Experience as part of U.S. Journalism in the 21st Century.