David Kraiselburd

David Kraiselburd (1912–1974) was an Argentine lawyer and prominent newspaper publisher.

Life and times

David Kraiselburd was born into a working-class Ukrainian Jewish family in Berisso, a suburb north of La Plata, Argentina, in 1912. In his teens, a high-school writing contest earned him an internship in La Plata's main daily, El Día, after the end of which he was hired by the paper as a sports commentator. He enrolled in the prestigious University of La Plata, and, at the paper, he was promoted to university affairs correspondent. He was also involved in university politics -- he had anarchist sympathies, and had protested Sacco and Vanzetti's execution a few years earlier. After earning the equivalent of a JD degree from Law School, he became a representative of the alumni association (Graduados). To broaden his background, he re-enrolled in the university and earned another degree in History. Also in those early years, the paper sent him to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War.

Gradually, he rose up in the journalistic ranks and became a prominent figure within and outside the paper. El Día's financial straits eventually led the heirs of its founding partners to sell part of their stake in the daily, and, in September 1961, Kraiselburd purchased a share of El Día. The main owners of the daily became, thus, the Fascetto family (heirs of one of the founding partners) and Kraiselburd, although none had a controlling share (this partnership ended in 2010, with an agreement that gave the Fascetto family full control of Diario Popular, founded by Kraiselburd in 1974, while control of El Día was given fully to the Kraiselburd family, especially his eldest son, Raul, who took up his father's post after his murder).

Putting his legal background in action as director and editor-in-chief, Kraiselburd was among the few Argentine publishers to openly oppose the 1966 coup d'état against the moderate, democratically elected President Arturo Illia. Kraiselburd denounced the imminent coup, and then refused to publish dictator Juan Carlos Onganía's inaugural address. Onganía's La Plata officials retaliated by confiscating that day's circulation and harassing the paper.

El Día's challenges were not mitigated by the return to democracy in 1973. A decree signed by interim President Raúl Lastiri sought to prohibit Argentine periodicals' access to international news agencies wires, in an attempt to limit them to wires published by Telam, the state news agency founded by Lastiri's benefactor, populist former President Juan Perón. This measure amounted to a monopoly of news wires by the state agency, controlled by the government. Kraiselburd moved quickly, however, and, on his initiative, El Día and numerous other Argentine dailies established a national news agency, Noticias Argentinas. He was named president of the agency while remaining at the helm of El Día.

Staunchly centrist, El Día marshaled its "Page 4" editorial section against both right-wing military interventions and extreme left-wing groups's intransigent politics, raising particular concern about the far-left's increasingly violent methods to control the local university's student publications. The most powerful and violent of these groups, Montoneros, retaliated by kidnapping Kraiselburd on June 25, 1974, and murdering his personal friend and El Día contributor, former Interior (law enforcement) Minister Arturo Mor Roig on July 15. Mor Roig had been instrumental in the transition toward democracy during the Lanusse military regime (which took place between the Onganía coup and the 1973 elections), but Montoneros regarded him as a supporter of the military, since he had been involved with Lanusse's government.

Kraiselburd was being held captive in a house in Gonnett, located between La Plata and Buenos Aires. Twenty odd days after the kidnapping, a neighbor called the police after noticing "suspicious activity" in the house next door. On July 17, 1974, a police unit was sent to investigate, and a shooting between the Montoneros cell and the police ensued. Outnumbered, the Montoneros shot Kraiselburd to death and fled the scene.

In September 1975, Kraiselburd was posthumously awarded the prestigious Maria Moors Cabot prize by Columbia University's School of Journalism, for his unfailing defense of democratic values in the face of authoritarianism of both right-wing and left-wing leanings. After Kraiselburd's murder, his eldest son, Raul, took up his post. Under his direction, and following the lead of his father, El Dia became, along with The Buenos Aires Herald and Diario Rio Negro, one of the few Argentinean newspapers to report on disappearances and other issues that were covered up by most of the Argentinean media during the Dirty War (1976-1983), as attested by subsequent awards of Columbia's Moors Cabot prizes.

Reference

• El Día

Persondata
Name	Kraiselburd, David
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1908
Place of birth
Date of death	1974
Place of death