El Diario

What is El Diario?

El Diario is a daily newspaper published in La Paz. It styles itself the “Decano de la Prensa Nacional”, which is its own description of itself.^[1] Reporters Without Borders names it in its 2026 Bolivia country page, writing that “the leading newspapers are El Deber and El Diario”, in the same passage in which it states that “the Bolivian government controls many newspapers” and that ownership of privately owned media “is highly concentrated, which jeopardises pluralism”. Those are RSF's words as at its 2026 index, in which Bolivia placed 91st of 180 with a score of 54.25.^[2]

What does El Diario cover?

The paper carries general news and a sports desk. Its sport output includes long-form treatment of venues and of the national team: on 5 September 2026 it published an account of the Estadio Hernando Siles, giving the ground as “ubicado a 3.577 metros sobre el nivel del mar” and “inaugurado en 1930 en el barrio paceño de Miraflores”, and setting out matches played there.^[3] That altitude figure is one of several in circulation and is used, with the others, on the Bolivia page. The same figure of 3,577 metres was published in Bolivia eighteen years earlier, by Opinión of Cochabamba on 14 January 2008, in its report of the FIFA altitude decision that then barred the ground from World Cup qualifiers.^[6] The two Bolivian figures agree; sources outside Bolivia give others.

It also reports on itself and on the institutions around it: on 5 April 2025 it carried a piece on legislators marking the work of the Decano de la Prensa Nacional, and on 5 April 2026 an anniversary piece recording 122 years.^[4][1]

How large is El Diario's audience?

No audited circulation or audience figure for El Diario could be retrieved. Neither its 2026 anniversary coverage nor the Agencia de Noticias Fides account of the paper carries a print run, a readership figure or a digital audience metric.^[1][5]

No Bolivian audited press-circulation currency could be retrieved for this page. Traffic estimators are not audited measurement and none is quoted here, and the paper's own coverage of the legislative tribute of 5 April 2025 carries no figure either.^[4] The measured figure that exists is at country level: RSF placed Bolivia 91st of 180 in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 54.25.^[2]

Since when has El Diario existed?

Two independent sources give the same date. The paper's own anniversary article of 5 April 2026 states that “el 5 de abril de 1904 saliera a la luz el primer ejemplar de este periódico”, names the founder as José Carrasco Torrico, “connotado político, constitucionalista y miembro del Partido Liberal”, and marks 122 years.^[1] The paper carries no founding instrument and no register entry alongside that account, so the date as published is the paper's own.^[1]

The corroborating account is not the paper's. The Agencia de Noticias Fides, which states in its own footer that it is “una obra de la Compañía de Jesús”, wrote on 5 April 2018 that “El Diario desde su fundación el 5 de abril de 1904, ha vivido diferentes etapas editoriales que iniciaron de la mano de José Carrasco Torrico”, marking 114 years on that date.^[5] The two accounts agree on the day, the year and the founder, and 1904 plus 122 and 1904 plus 114 return the two anniversary years each source marks.^[1][5]

Why does El Diario matter in Bolivia's sport?

It is the La Paz title on this list, and La Paz is where the stadium at the centre of Bolivia's most mythologised sporting claim stands. Its account of 5 September 2026 is one of the sources used on this site for the altitude of the Estadio Hernando Siles, alongside two Bolivian reports from 2007 and 2008 giving the same 3,577 metres and two other sources giving 3,598 and 3,604 metres.^[3][6] Where published figures differ, this site gives them as published.

The second reason is its date. Both the paper and ANF place its first issue on 5 April 1904.^[1][5] A sports claim carried by a title publishing since 1904 can be checked against a long run of its own back numbers, which is a different kind of evidence from a figure first published on a news site; this page uses only what it retrieved, and dates each claim to the article that carries it. Its position in the market is described by RSF in the words quoted above, and RSF names it there.^[2] See Bolivian sports media and Bolivia.