Six months after the online daily newspaper Clave Digital closed, the Dominican Republic has a new digital newspaper: Acento.
Acento launched Wednesday, Feb. 16, according to the news agency EFE.
Under the leadership of journalist Fausto Rosario Adames, who also was the editor of Clave Digital, the new Acento will focus not only on bringing the news, but also on emphasizing interactivity with readers via social media.
"This is a proposal for innovative journalism, both in content and in design and we are committed to this issue, which should be a different experience for readers of digital news," Rosario Adames said in a statement that was sent to the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. "It is a new means to strengthen national democratic debate, to broaden the perspectives of analysis and information available to the country, and also to seek to strengthen the innovative and technological proposals in the field of online journalism in the Dominican Republic."
A staff of about 20, with the help of 60 regular contributors, produces the digital publication, which also will include a television broadcast.
With Internet use growing by about 35 percent a year in this Caribbean nation, Rosario Adames said, it was important that the newspaper be online because "the Internet is where the present and future of journalism is," he said, as quoted by PRNoticias.
Clave DIgital, Rosario Adames's earlier publication, was an independent journalism endeavor with an editorial line that often bothered authorities and police. When he announced the closure of Clave Digital, Rosario Adames revealed that, after publishing articles about drug trafficking, he had received death threats and been the target of an assassination attempt.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
