Cosette Bonnelly de Maldonado, executive director of El Nuevo Diario, dies

Santo Domingo — Dominican journalism lost on Wednesday one of the figures who marked the national press's leap into the digital era: journalist Cosette Bonnelly de Maldonado, executive director of El Nuevo Diario and creator of that outlet's digital portal, died on the morning of October 21 at the Centro de Diagnóstico, Medicina Avanzada y Telemedicina (Cedimat) in Santo Domingo, after several days hospitalized with health complications.

Bonnelly was closely tied to El Nuevo Diario's modernization process. Alongside her husband, journalist and businessman Persio Maldonado, the newspaper's general director and president of the Dominican Society of Newspapers, she drove the media company's technological transformation and the expansion of its digital platforms, DiarioDigitalRD reported.

Her name became associated with one of the milestones of Dominican digital communication: the creation of El Nuevo Diario's digital portal, from where she helped strengthen the newspaper's presence on the internet and adapt it to new ways of consuming news.

Her contributions to the development of digital media were publicly recognized in November 2023, when the Digital Media Observatory awarded her a special distinction for her career and her contribution to the growth of the Dominican digital ecosystem.

The news drew immediate reactions. President Luis Abinader expressed his condolences to the family during an event at the National Palace, voicing his sorrow and his solidarity with the communicator's relatives.

She is survived by her husband, Persio Maldonado, and her children Mónica, Sarah and Persio Sully Maldonado Bonnelly. Her remains will lie in state today, Thursday, at the Blandino funeral home on Abraham Lincoln Avenue (Chapel D), from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and she will then be cremated, the outlet Paso a Paso reported.

Photo: Comercio en la Calle

Source: DiarioDigitalRD