''El Mundo'' (; ), before ''El Mundo del Siglo Veintiuno'', is the second largest printed

daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...

in Spain. The paper is considered one of the country's newspapers of record along with ''

El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

and ABC.''

History and profile

''El Mundo'' was first published on 23 October 1989. Perhaps the best known of its founders was

Pedro J. Ramírez Pedro José Ramírez Codina (born 26 March 1952), widely known as Pedro J. Ramírez, is a Spanish journalist. When he was appointed to manage '' Diario 16'' at the age of 28, he became Spain's youngest editor of a national newspaper. In 1989 he ...

, who served as editor until 2014. Ramirez had risen to prominence as a journalist during the

Spanish transition to democracy Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries ** Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...

. The other founders,

Alfonso de Salas Alfonso de Salas (3 September 1943 – 24 September 2019) was a Spanish editor, founder of ''Cambio 16'', and co-founder of the newspapers '' El Mundo'' and '' El Economista''. Biography After graduating in law and completing a master's degree in ...

, Balbino Fraga and Juan González, shared with Ramírez a background in Grupo 16, the publishers of the newspaper ''

Diario 16 ''Diario 16'' (Spanish for "Daily 16" or "Newspaper 16") was a Spanish-language daily newspaper published in Madrid, Spain, between 1976 and 2001. The ''16'' of the title refers to the sixteen founders of Grupo 16, publishers of the weekly news m ...

''. Alfonso de Salas, Juan Gonzales and Gregorio Pena also launched '' El Economista'' in 2006. ''El Mundo'', along with '' Marca'' and '' Expansión'', is controlled by the Italian publishing company RCS MediaGroup through its Spanish subsidiary company Unidad Editorial S.L. Its former owner was Unedisa which merged with Grupo Recoletos in 2007 to form Unidad Editorial, current owner of the paper. The paper has its headquarters in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, but maintains several news bureaus in other cities. The daily has a national edition and ten different regional editions, including those for

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a "historical nationality". The ...

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

Castile and León Castile and León ( es, Castilla y León ; ast-leo, Castiella y Llión ; gl, Castela e León ) is an autonomous community in northwestern Spain. It was created in 1983, eight years after the end of the Francoist regime, by the merging of th ...

, the

Balearic Islands The Balearic Islands ( es, Islas Baleares ; or ca, Illes Balears ) are an archipelago in the Balearic Sea, near the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The archipelago is an autonomous community and a province of Spain; its capital is ...

and

Bilbao ) , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = 275 px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Bilbao , pushpin_map = Spain Basque Country#Spain#Europe , pushpin_map_caption ...

. It is published in tabloid format. In 2005 ''El Mundo'' started a supplement for women, ''Yo Donna'', which was modelled on '' IO Donna'', a supplement of the Italian daily ''

Corriere della Sera The ''Corriere della Sera'' (; en, "Evening Courier") is an Italian daily newspaper published in Milan with an average daily circulation of 410,242 copies in December 2015. First published on 5 March 1876, ''Corriere della Sera'' is one of I ...

''. In January 2014 Pedro J. Ramírez, editor of the paper, was fired from his post. He argued that reporting on corruption scandals involving Spanish Prime Minister

Mariano Rajoy Mariano Rajoy Brey (; born 27 March 1955) is a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 2011 to 2018, when a vote of no confidence ousted his government. On 5 June 2018, he announced his resignation as People's Party le ...

led to his sacking. Casimiro García-Abadillo served as editor until April 2015, when he was replaced in turn by David Jiménez.

Editorial stance

Editorially, ''El Mundo'' often expresses the mainstream views of the

centre-right Centre-right politics lean to the right of the political spectrum, but are closer to the centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure and the economy, moving away from the nobility and ...

with

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

and liberal overtones.https://www.adfcpadreanchieta.com/uploads/1/7/3/1/17311346/l%C3%ADnea_editorial_de_algunos_peri%C3%B3dicos_espa%C3%B1oles_revisada.pdf El Mundo defines its editorial line as liberal. It is usually critical of the

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

and peripheral nationalisms. Its current ideology is secular

center-right Centre-right politics lean to the right of the political spectrum, but are closer to the centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure and the economy, moving away from the nobility and mer ...

. Among its columnists there is a remarkable heterogeneity and eclecticism, often openly critical of the editorial line itself. At the time it was decisive in the fall of

Felipe González Felipe González Márquez (; born 5 March 1942) is a Spanish lawyer, professor, and politician, who was the Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from 1974 to 1997, and the 3rd Prime Minister of Spain since th ...

.https://www.adfcpadreanchieta.com/uploads/1/7/3/1/17311346/l%C3%ADnea_editorial_de_algunos_peri%C3%B3dicos_espa%C3%B1oles_revisada.pdf According to its ideological principles, “it aspires to be a progressive newspaper, committed to defending the current democratic system, public freedoms and human rights included in the Universal Declaration promulgated by the UN and in the European Convention of Human Rights."

Political impact

''El Mundo'' has played a key role in uncovering a number of scandals, among them embezzlement by the commander of the Guardia Civil, accusations of

insider trading Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider informati ...

and tax fraud by the governor of the Central Bank of Spain and aspects of the

Bárcenas affair The Bárcenas affair is a corruption scandal in Spain that affects the conservative People's Party (PP), one of the country's main political parties. Following revelations that Luis Bárcenas, who served as party treasurer and senator, held 48 mil ...

. Investigative reporting by the staff of ''El Mundo'' also revealed connections between the terrorist

Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación GAL (an acronym for ''Grupos Antiterroristas de Liberación'', "Antiterrorist Liberation Groups") were death squads illegally established by officials of the Spanish government to fight against ETA, the principal Basque separatist militant g ...

(GAL) and the

Socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

administration of

, revelations that contributed to his defeat in the 1996 elections. In October 2005, ''El Mundo'' revealed that Nazi Aribert Heim (aka "Doctor Death") had been living in Spain for 20 years, probably with help from the

ODESSA Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

network, in collaboration with

Otto Skorzeny Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny (12 June 1908 – 5 July 1975) was an Austrian-born German SS-''Obersturmbannführer'' (lieutenant colonel) in the Waffen-SS during World War II. During the war, he was involved in a number of operations, including t ...

, who had helped set up one of the most important ODESSA bases of operation in Spain, during the rule of

Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 193 ...

. After the

11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings The 2004 Madrid train bombings (also known in Spain as 11M) were a series of coordinated, nearly simultaneous bombings against the Cercanías commuter train system of Madrid, Spain, on the morning of 11 March 2004—three days before Spain's g ...

, the newspapers ''El Mundo'' and '' La Razón'', the regional television channel

Telemadrid Telemadrid is a public regional television station in the Community of Madrid, Spain, the flagship channel of the regional public broadcaster Radio Televisión Madrid (RTVM). It began its broadcast on 2 May 1989. History First years Telema ...

and the COPE radio network alleged that there had been inconsistencies in the explanations given by the Spanish judiciary about the bombings. Other Spanish media, such as ''

'', '' ABC'' and the Cadena SER radio network, accused ''El Mundo'' and the other media of manipulation over this issue. The bombings and the results of the subsequent judicial inquiry are still debated in Spain today.

Circulation

The circulation of ''El Mundo'' rose in the 1990s. It was * 209,992 copies in 1993 * 268,748 copies in 1994 *68,813 copies in 2020 In 2001 ''El Mundo'' had a circulation of 291,000 copies and it was 312,366 copies next year. The paper had a circulation of 300,000 copies in 2003, making it the third best selling newspaper in the country. Based on the findings of the European Business Readership Survey ''El Mundo'' had 11,591 readers per issue in 2006. Its circulation between June 2006 and July 2007 was 337,172 copies. The 2007 circulation of the paper was 337,000 copies. It was 338,286 copies in 2008 and had 200,000 readers for the printed edition in 2009. The circulation of the paper was 266,294 copies in 2011. In April 2020 the newspaper had 51,526 readers of the printed edition.

Digital readership

''El Mundo'' (elmundo.es) is currently the second digital newspaper in Spanish. It was previously in the lead after ''El País'' introduced a payment system for access to the contents of its electronic version. It had 24 million unique web visitors per month in 2009. Many online readers are in Latin America, and the website has an edition for the Americas. However, digital expansion has done little to offset the decline in revenues from Spanish advertisers since 2008. The newspaper aims to increase digital profits via a subscription model. It launched a current affairs outlet only accessible to subscription customers, named ORBYT.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mundo Daily newspapers published in Spain Newspapers published in Madrid Spanish-language newspapers Spanish-language websites Newspapers established in 1989 1989 establishments in Spain RCS MediaGroup newspapers Spanish news websites El Mundo (Spain)