This week, the Times of San Diego announced the launch of Tiempos de San Diego, a new Spanish-language news offering delivered daily via WhatsApp. Times of San Diego has hired binational journalist Alejandro Maciel to report and connect with readers there.
Maciel has led Los Angeles Times en Español, served as deputy editor of El Diario/La Prensa in New York and worked as an associate editor at People Magazine. He also spent time as a front‑page editor at La Opinión and has contributed to Radio Bilingüe, Radio Fórmula and KPFK.
He says he is “driven by a commitment to telling the stories that bring this region together and is committed to bilingual journalism that informs, connects and truly serves the community.”
And that’s exactly what Tiempos will be about: informing, connecting and serving Spanish speakers across the region.
The Times of San Diego is launching it on WhatsApp to connect with people where they already are.
The American Journalism Project conducted a community listening survey in San Diego in 2024, and respondents overwhelmingly indicated they needed news to be more accessible: to meet them where they are, in their language and to be affordable.
Last month, Javier Marín, executive chairman of Tiempo Company (no affiliation to Tiempos de San Diego) and a panelist at the Knight Media Forum, told us “the infrastructure of Spanish-speaking news media has been dismantled, and it needs to be recovered” — at a critical time when Spanish speakers are under attack.
Tiempos de San Diego aims to address reader needs in Southern California and fill a critical gap.
Interested in following along? You can join the Tiempos de San Diego WhatsApp group to get daily curated news updates and must-know information from around San Diego County and the border region by clicking here from your phone or texting 619-964-6029.
We’ll keep you updated on this exciting project as we continue to build it out.
This update appeared in our Mar. 5, 2026, newsletter. This version has been lightly edited for clarity.