El Espectador

El Espectador (meaning "The Spectator") is a newspaper with national circulation within Colombia, founded by Fidel Cano Gutiérrez on 22 March 1887 in Medellín and published since 1915 in Bogotá. It changed from a daily to a weekly edition in 2001, following a financial crisis, and became a daily again on 11 May 2008, a comeback which had been long rumoured, in tabloid format (28 x 39.5 cm). From 1997 to 2011 its main shareholder was Julio Mario Santo Domingo. It is the oldest newspaper in Colombia. Since its first issue its motto has been "El Espectador will work for the good of the country with liberal criteria and for the good of the liberal principles with patriotic criteria". It was initially published twice a week, 500 issues each. It defined itself as a "political, literary, news and industrial newspaper". Years later it became a daily and in 2001 became a weekly. Since then, the paper uses the slogan "El Espectador. Opinion is news", implying it now focuses in opinion articles, not in breaking news. This focus was kept when it regained its daily format on 11 May 2008. According to the latest Estudio General de Medios (EGM – Segunda Ola 2007 (II-2007)), El Espectador has 687,900 readers every week. It is a member of the Inter American Press Association and the Asociación de Diarios Colombianos (ANDIARIOS). Since its foundation in 1887, El Espectador acted as a speaker for the Colombian Liberal Party, at the time opposed to the administrations of the conservative Regeneration. It was closed by the authorities several times: 8 July 1887, by the Rafael Núñez administration, 134 days after its first issue, until 10 January 1888. 27 October 1888, by the then designated Carlos Holguín Sardi, until 12 February 1891; previously, the Catholic Church had forbidden its followers to read the newspaper, because of criticism of the lavishness of the Catholic Church in public celebrations made by its director. On 26 September 1892 the government fined the newspaper with $200.000 after considering one of its articles "subversive".