''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal '' Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. Its motto is: "''La Nación'' will be a tribune of doctrine." It is the second most read newspaper in print, behind ''Clarín'', and the third in digital format, behind '' Infobae'' and ''Clarín''. In addition, it has an application for Android and

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

phones. The newspaper's printing plant is in the

City of Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South Am ...

and its newsroom is in Vicente López, Province of Buenos Aires. The newsroom also acts as a studio for the newspaper's

TV channel A television channel is a terrestrial frequency or virtual number over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the terrestrial or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, with ...

, LN+.

Overview

The paper was founded on 4 January 1870 (replacing the former publication ''Nación Argentina''), by former Argentine President Bartolomé Mitre and associates. Until 1914, the managing editor was José Luis Murature, Foreign Minister of Argentina from 1914-1916. Enjoying Latin America's largest readership until the 1930s, its daily circulation averaged around 350,000, and exceeded only by ''Crítica'', a Buenos Aires tabloid. The 1945 launch of ''Clarín'' created a new rival, and following the 1962 closure of ''Crítica'', and the 1975 suspension of '' Crónica'', ''La Nación'' secured its position as the chief market rival of ''Clarín''. Originally published in Bartolomé Mitre's home (today, the Museo Mitre), its offices were moved a number of times until, in 1929, a

Plateresque Plateresque, meaning "in the manner of a silversmith" (''plata'' being silver in Spanish), was an artistic movement, especially architectural, developed in Spain and its territories, which appeared between the late Gothic and early Renaissance ...

headquarters on Florida Street was inaugurated. The publishing group today is headquartered in the Bouchard Plaza Tower, a 26-storey Post-modern office building developed between 2000 and 2004 over the news daily's existing, six-storey building. The director of ''La Nación'', Bartolomé Mitre (the founder's great-great-grandson), shares control of ADEPA, the Argentine newspaper industry trade group, and of Papel Prensa, the nation's leading newsprint manufacturer, with Grupo Clarín. The newspaper was part of the

conflict between Kirchnerism and the media The Argentine Governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had several conflicts with major media groups. Kirchner accused the Clarín Group, ''La Nación'', ''Perfil'', and related media of having promoted their overthrow ...

, when Lidia Papaleo denounced, endorsed by the Kirchners, that they would have been forced to sell Papel Prensa under torture during the Dirty War. Judge Julián Ercolini acquitted him in 2016, pointing that there was no evidence to support the claim. The decline of ''La Nación'' has run parallel with the loss of political and economic power of the landowning

upper middle class In sociology, the upper middle class is the social group constituted by higher status members of the middle class. This is in contrast to the term ''lower middle class'', which is used for the group at the opposite end of the middle-class strat ...

. It is still a medium for its interests, but its circulation has been cut in half and sales are decreasing at an average of 8% per year. In early 2012, ''La Nación'' bought ImpreMedia, the publisher of ''El Diario-La Prensa'', ''La Opinión'' and other US-based Spanish-language newspapers. On October 30, 2016, ''La Nación'' announced a change in its printing format, with weekday editions now being printed as tabloids and weekend editions retaining the traditional broadsheet format.

Awards

In 2019, the

Society for News Design The Society for News Design (SND), formerly known as the Society of Newspaper Design, is an international organization for professionals working in the news sector of the media industry, specifically those involved with graphic design, illustration ...

named ''La Nación'' as the World's Best Designed Newspaper, sharing the award together with '' The Sunday Times'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''.

Circulation

''La Nacións daily circulation averaged 165,166 in 2012, and still represented nearly 20% of the daily newspaper circulation in Buenos Aires; the paper is also distributed nationwide and around the world. According to third-party web analytics providers

Alexa Alexa may refer to: Technology *Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon * Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service * Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture camera People * Alexa (name), a given name a ...

and SimilarWeb, La Nación's website is the 9th and 17th most visited in Argentina respectively, as of August 2015. SimilarWeb rates the site as the 4th most visited news website in Argentina, attracting almost 32 million visitors per month.

Gallery

File:Diario_La_Naci%C3%B3n_(calle_San_Mart%C3%ADn).JPG, Former Building on San Martín 500. File:Bouchard_Plaza_desde_el_dique.JPG, Former offices at Bouchard Plaza building. File:Complejo Al Río Torre Sur - Vicente López.jpg, Headquarters from 2015, located in Vicente López, Buenos Aires Province.

Editorial stance

In its origins, ''La Nación'' was born as a partisan newspaper, to sustain the action of Bartolomé Mitre, former President of Argentina. It was one of the most influential in the country's political life until the first half of the century. Mitre had just closed the Argentine Nation and decided to replace it with this other newspaper that he conceived as a platform of doctrine. It would be destined to propagate the

liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

ideology that he dreamed of for the country. Self-proclaimed a "platform of doctrine" of

liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...

, he is considered the official spokesman of the oligarchy. Mitre inspired an editorial policy opposed to discrimination and openly in favor of full equality between Argentines and foreigners. In the 19th century, ''La Nación'' underwent four closures. The final closure suffered was ordered by Julio Argentino Roca, amidst the debates on the unification of the public debt. During the two world wars, ''La Nacións editorial stance was clearly oriented in favour of the allied cause, and critical, in both cases, of the neutrality policy of the Argentine government. George Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson,

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

, and Charles De Gaulle were constantly portrayed on the pages as heroes of the cause for freedom. Jorge Adolfo Mitre, director of the newspaper for twenty years with a

profile, urged the newspaper to follow the laws of common, free and compulsory education, secularization of cemeteries and civil marriage. Hipólito Yrigoyen, twice president for the Radical Civic Union, was tried with manifest severity in his governments. ''La Nación'' found reasons to win sympathy with the government of Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear. In 1920 the direction of the literary supplement that he had decided to include in the Sunday editions was left in the hands of Arturo Cancela, a nationalist catholic. For this, the newspaper featured articles authored by Benito Mussolini. So did Leon Trotsky, as he fled the world when the Stalinists who were chasing him. The newspaper supported the 1930 coup d'état led by José Félix Uriburu, though it later condemned the electoral fraud that dominated the country between 1931 and 1943, during the so-called " Infamous Decade". According to members of the newspaper's board of directors, La Nación had two pillars since its foundation in 1870: being an expression of the national culture and a support for the Argentine countryside. It has been the Argentine newspaper that is most involved with the development of the

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

, the most efficient sector of the national economy.

Victoria Ocampo Ramona Victoria Epifanía Rufina Ocampo (7 April 1890 – 27 January 1979) was an Argentine writer and intellectual. Best known as an advocate for others and as publisher of the literary magazine '' Sur'', she was also a writer and critic in he ...

Adolfo Bioy Casares Adolfo Bioy Casares (; 15 September 1914 – 8 March 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. He is the author of the Fa ...

and

Ernesto Sabato Ernesto Sabato (June 24, 1911 – April 30, 2011) was an Argentine novelist, essayist, painter and physicist. According to the BBC he "won some of the most prestigious prizes in Hispanic literature" and "became very influential in the literary w ...

found in a journal of

and also

ideas, the appropriate environment to express their thoughts. Mario Vargas Llosa, historic contributor, said:

The role of the newspaper a Nación in Argentina has been and is very rich. Fundamental to the culture of the country, a field in which it has performed an unimaginable work.

According to Julio Maria Sanguinetti, a daily collaborator of La Nacion, “it has been a space for coexistence and a forum of ideas for conservative liberals,

progressive liberals Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...

social democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

, Christian democrats or even open-minded nationalists, that there is all of this in our political life, distributed in diverse parties or expression of individualities." Always

in tendency, ''La Nación'' accompanied the resistance of the ruling classes to the changes that reality imposed. The newspaper continues to call the two periods of Perón's constitutional government "dictatorship" and does not use the same term to name the military governments installed after the successive coups d'état. José Claudio Escribano, historical Deputy Director of the newspaper and member of its Editorial Board, declared that he is simultaneously

and

La Nación is simultaneously a liberal and conservative newspaper... and we feel good in that place. We are
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
regarding the defense of values that are highly representative of Argentine society. The defense of freedom, the defense of a minimum order without which an organized society is not possible, the defense of the republican institutions that the constituents of 1853-60 gave us. And we are liberals in the broadest sense of the word. We are not liberal economists, but as long as we are in favor of the possibility that in all areas of knowledge the reader has a plural informative offer.

Historic contributors

Some of the most famous writers in

Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...

have appeared regularly in its columns. *

José Martí José Julián Martí Pérez (; January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) was a Cuban nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the libera ...

Miguel de Unamuno Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca. His major philosophical essa ...

* Alberto Gerchunoff * Eduardo Mallea * José Ortega y Gasset *

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...

* Rubén Darío * Alfonso Reyes * Manuel Mujica Láinez *

Alberto Lleras Camargo Alberto Lleras Camargo (3 July 1906 – 4 January 1990) was the 20th President of Colombia (1958–1962), and the 1st Secretary General of the Organization of American States (1948–1954). A journalist and liberal party politician, he also se ...

* Mario Vargas Llosa

Notable columnists

Today, it has prominent columnists and journalists. * Joaquín Morales Solá * Carlos Pagni * Jorge Fernández Díaz * Mariano Grondona * Hugo Alconada Mon * Juan Carlos de Pablo * Nora Bär * Facundo Manes * Diego Sehinkman * Iván de Pineda * Pablo Sirvén * Carlos Reymundo Roberts * Fernando Laborda * Héctor Guyot * Claudio Jacquelin * Martín Rodríguez Yebra * Ariel Torres

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nacion, La Spanish-language newspapers Daily newspapers published in Argentina Publications established in 1870 Mass media in Buenos Aires Spanish-language websites Argentine news websites