Diario El Salvador was launched in October 2020 as a state-run daily newspaper.


Media assets

Publishing: Diaro El Salvador

State Media Matrix Typology: State-Controlled (SC)


Ownership and governance

Diario El Salvador is run and owned by the President’s Press Office. According to the media, the legal representative of the newspaper is a high official in the tourism ministry. The government does not seem to hide its connection with the newspaper. On 7 October 2020, President Bukele announced on his twitter account that Diario El Salvador was born, describing it as a state-owned company. Diario El Salvador has a circulation of 10,000 copies and employs 70 people, according to the latest data available.

Source of funding and budget

Diario El Salvador finances itself through sales of copies and state funds (both subsidies and advertising). The price per copy is $0.25. Although presented as a state-owned enterprise, Diario El Salvador is not easily auditable because its ownership is hidden behind a group of “subsidiaries” (government-owned companies operating in the energy sector), which is a strategy to avoid public audits, according to an investigation carried out by Factum Magazine. Based on data presented by the magazine (number of state ads), it appears that the newspaper is majority funded by the government.

Editorial independence

The editorial coverage in Diario El Salvador is favorable to the government of President Bukele. The website defines itself as follows: “Diario El Salvador emerges as a serious, complex and novel information offer where we will give voice to those who have been excluded from the narrative of the rest of the media (…) the newspaper will not live off the street sales, which are entirely intended for vendors and distributors.”

Based on articles published on the newspaper’s website, the editorial line is characterized by excessive praise of President Bukele and constant challenging of his opponents. There is not a single snippet of content on the newspaper’s website that is critical of the government or Bukele. Another research project run by Factum whose findings were published on 4 March 2022 showed that the newspaper is overwhelmingly a propaganda channel for the president. The research from Factum analyzed almost 3,000 pieces of content published by Diario El Salvador between October 2020 and November 2021.

No domestic statute that establishes the editorial independence of Diario El Salvador has been identified.

The El Salvador Journalists Association (APES) has a code of ethics that is supposed to apply to all the media in the country. However, Diario El Salvador has no independent mechanism of assessment or oversight used to validate the editorial independence of its media outlets.

August 2023