La Silla Vacía
Editor-in-Chief[1] | |
| Employees | 18 |
|---|---|
| URL | lasillavacia.com |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | 29 March 2009[2] |
| Current status | Active |
La Silla Vacía (Spanish: "The Empty Chair") is a Colombian news website founded by journalist and writer Juanita León in 2009.[3] The site focuses primarily on Colombian politics.
La Silla Vacía describes itself as an "informative and interactive medium for people interested in Colombian political current issues," by focusing on "stories which actually describe the way power is exercised in Colombia: on political figures who pull the strings of power, strategies in order to reach and keep it, on ideas and interests which underlie the big decisions taken in the country," aiming to do "good journalism."[4]
Name
Its name, "The Empty Chair" (or, alternatively, "The Empty Seat"), makes reference to at least two political events in Colombia.[2]
The first one occurred 7 January 1999, when the
The second alludes to a proposal prompted by the
But the founder has said that the name comes from a march of indigenous communities in Cauca who marched through the Pan American road to meet President Uribe and he never went to the encounter. So they left an empty seat for him. "
Contents
The website was originally divided in five big sections:
- Desde la Silla ("From the Chair"): the main stories published on the website. Most of them are journalistic articles or analysis pieces. There are some interviews, including two with presidential pre-candidates for the Rafael Pardo.[9] These were conducted through a live transmission via internet, with users asking questions using the website, Facebook, and Twitter.
- La Movida del Día: every weekday a question on a current issue is posted by the staff. The question is answered by political figures, analysts, and intellectuals. Users can "endorse" or "not endorse" these answers.
- Querido diario ("Dear diary"): briefs focusing on political gossip.
- El Blogueo ("The Blogging"): blogs by analysts, organizations, and intellectuals, focusing on economy, social responsibility, internet, media, relations with Venezuela, Latin America and the United States, etc.
- La Butaca ("The Stool"): described as a section where "from diverse narrative formats with no limits the other [Colombia] is shown on La Butaca, with their sometimes ironic, acid, or simply different glances."
Now, after its most recent redesign, the sections have changed to:
- Historias: 4 daily investigated and original stories are published
- La Silla Llena: it´s a debate platform where more than 500 experts in different fields blog in their respective networks.
- La Silla Académica: it´s a section dedicated to distribute the knowledge created by the universities subscribed to this service.
- Quién es Quién: it´s the most complete directory of powerful people in Colombia
- Hágame el cruce: it´s the section where the databases of the media are compiled.
Funding
La Silla Vacía was originally funded through a series of grants (the grantees include Ford Foundation,
References
- ^ "Autores".
- ^ Semana (in Spanish). 2009-03-29. Archived from the originalon 2009-04-03. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- Semana (in Spanish). 2009-03-21. Retrieved 2009-05-16. [dead link]
- ^ Juanita León. "¿Quiénes somos?". La Silla Vacía (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2009-04-30. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ "House approves political reform". Colombia Reports. 2009-05-07. Archived from the original on 2009-06-28. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ "Pasó la reforma política. Se constitucionalizó el 'voltearepismo'". Caracol Radio (in Spanish). 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ "Uribe se declaró partidario de la 'silla vacía' pero solo con sentencia ejecutoriada". Caracol Radio (in Spanish). 2008-04-20. Retrieved 2009-05-18.
- ^ "Durante una hora, los usuarios de La Silla Vacía entrevistaron el pasado lunes en vivo (sic) y en directo al candidato presidencial Sergio Fajardo. Estas son sus respuestas en seis temas claves para el país". La Silla Vacía (in Spanish). 2009-05-02. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
- ^ "Las respuestas de Rafael Pardo a los usuarios ocuparon La Silla Vacía. Memorias de la entrevista en vivo (sic)". La Silla Vacía (in Spanish). 2009-05-16. Retrieved 2009-05-16.
External links
- (in Spanish) La Silla Vacía