Dear Readers,
La Voce di York is in its tenth year of life and if in 2013 a crystal ball had shown me the homepage of our newspaper today, I would have jumped with incredulous happiness. The idea of this paper arose from the great glocal opportunity offered by the internet: the ability, despite sparse means, to create a publication capable of being both local and global, read in New York and simultaneously in Italy, as well as in other countries.
This incredible aim was achieved right from the very first steps of La Voce, which has since never stopped growing its readership, mostly concentrated between North America, Italy, and Europe, but with thousands more readers, “Italici”, scattered in all corners of the world (in 2022 we were read in 226 countries, including islands, according to Google Analytics data).
For me as its founder, the intuition that La Voce di New York was to be an Italian-language newspaper edited and published in the United States and, therefore, protected by the First Amendment of the American Constitution was an important experiment, a unique experiment full of opportunities.
Many articles have passed under the proverbial bridges of world news in ten years and even a debate on the meaning of freedom of the press and the role of the media in the United States now finds liberticidal sides that were unthinkable in 2013. But La Voce has continued to confirm its main objective: to connect hundreds of thousands of Italians around the world from New York, also attracting readers who are not Italian by birth, and perhaps not even by blood, but for whom Italian culture and language run through their veins.
In imagining that crystal ball, I can also write that I have achieved the most difficult personal goal for those who give birth to a newspaper: that its growth does not depend on the founder’s work as Editor in Chief. Many times I thought I would not hit this target and that La Voce, too, would be destined to be one of the meteors in the variegated sky of the Italian press abroad. Instead, and with pride, I can announce that this goal has been fully achieved: the reins of the newspaper have passed into the safe and expert hands of Giampaolo Pioli, who for more than two years, as president of VNY Corp., has made the newspaper more organized, growing it further. But above all, Giampaolo, being a highly experienced and capable journalist and sharing the founding values of La Voce di New York, also added an exciting wave of ideas that have already been making La Voce di New York an unmissable newspaper for months, not only for Italians who reside in New York.
After ten years, I’m experiencing the wonder of this miracle, being able to see a newspaper founded from nothing become stronger and more followed. This finally allows me to devote myself to my main interests: the coverage and analysis of international events from the United Nations, teaching, and academic research.
Many are the highly experienced journalists as well as valiant and talented young people who, with their generous professionalism, have made it possible to achieve this result. The list would be too long to mention them all, but my infinite gratitude goes to all.
Special thanks go to Emilio, Jeff, Emmelina, Grace, and Marcello, who at different stages of the newspaper have come to the rescue not only with their professionalism but above all with their deep friendship: without you, La Voce would not be here today.
I owe everything to my children Louis and Siena and to my wife Robyn, who, in enduring my constant absences over the past ten years, have never let me lack the indispensable affection it took to get here.
To all of you readers who have made these years of “freedom and beauty” possible and unforgettable with La Voce di New York, we will meet again in the pages of our newspaper.
