''Diena'' (''The Day'') is a

Latvian language Latvian (, ), also known as Lettish, is an East Baltic languages, East Baltic language belonging to the Indo-European language family. It is spoken in the Baltic region, and is the language of the Latvians. It is the official language of Latvia ...

national daily

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Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

, published since 23 November 1990. It is one of Latvia's largest daily periodicals and used to be considered as a paper of record.

History

The newspaper was initially founded as the official paper of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia. Since

privatisation Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

in 1993, Diena was owned by Swedish media group Bonnier. Diena had 18,277 subscribers in December 2009, down from 26,866 in February 2009, and 41,471 in April 2000. It shifted from

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format in 2007. The newspaper's

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

edition was discontinued in 2000.

Controversies

In 2002, the publisher was fined for articles published in 1998 and criticizing then-minister for economy Laimonis Strujevičs. In 2007, the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The court hears applications alleging that a co ...

held the fine to be in violation of freedom of expression. In 2009, AS Diena together with its sister business daily Dienas Bizness was sold to an ambiguous investor group owned by Jonathan and David Rowland. On 6 August 2010, the Latvian businessman Viesturs Koziols acquired a 51% stake in the joint-stock company Diena. However, an investigation by the Latvian Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau into the "Oligarchs Case" determined in 2011 that the paper in reality was owned by three Latvian oligarchs:

Andris Šķēle Andris Šķēle (born 16 January 1958) is a Latvian former politician and business oligarch. He served two terms as Prime Minister of Latvia from 1995 to 1997, and again from 1999 to 2000. Early life Šķēle graduated from the Latvian Agri ...

, Aivars Lembergs and

Ainārs Šlesers Ainārs Šlesers (born 22 January 1970) is a Latvian business Business oligarch, oligarch and politician who was Deputy Prime Minister of Latvia, as well as Deputy Mayor of Riga. Currently he is a member of the Saeima, Latvian Parliament and head ...

through the ''AS Rīgas tirdzniecības osta'' (JSC Riga Commercial Port, RTO – renamed ''AS Riga Port'' in 2022) company. This was further confirmed with the release of the notorious "" in 2017, in which the oligarchs are heard discussing their takeover of the paper. RTO ultimately sold the paper in 2015. Following the change of ownership, many of the newspaper's staff resigned in October 2009. They started the online paper ''Cita Diena,'' which was transformed into the weekly newspaper ''Ir'' in 2010.

Leadership

After long-time chief editor Sarmīte Ēlerte left the paper in 2008, it experienced a frequent change of leadership from 2009 to 2013. These included editors Ilmārs Znotiņš, and sociologist . On May 10, 2013, became the incumbent chief editor of the newspaper. The owner of the paper since 2015 is former

Latvijas Televīzija Latvijas Televīzija (''Latvian Television'', LTV) is the state-owned public service broadcasting, public service television broadcaster in Latvia. LTV operates two channels, LTV1 in Latvian language, Latvian and LTV7 (previously called LTV2) in ...

head .

References

External links

* European Court of Human Rights cases involving Latvia Newspapers published in Latvia Companies based in Riga Mass media in Riga 1990 establishments in Latvia Newspapers established in 1990 {{Latvia-newspaper-stub