Storied Paper Bets on a Daily Future in Colombia

BOGOTA, Colombia, May 11 -- El Espectador, Colombia's oldest newspaper, has been bombed, torched and occupied by troops, and its most legendary editor, Guillermo Cano, was slain in a hail of gunfire. The paper published Gabriel García Márquez's first stories, long before he became a Nobel Prize winner, and has printed verses from the renowned poet Porfirio Barba-Jacob.

In short, it has had a storied history. But it appeared on the brink of coming to a close when, beset by financial troubles, the paper laid off much of its staff and became a weekly in 2001.

Now, in a counterintuitive tale at a time when papers around the world are in trouble, El Espectador has returned to the daily-newspaper business. It is a nod to Colombia's booming economy, among Latin America's most vibrant, but also to what many see as the big journalistic void in one of the world's most fabulously newsy countries -- the lack of a hard-hitting daily ready to take on the powers that be.

Seeing itself as something of a noble institution on a mission, El Espectador has hired reporters and editors and redesigned the paper from a broadsheet into a European-style tabloid. On Sunday, it hit the streets remade, its press run of 150,000 celebrated -- for this is a country where groundbreaking journalists abound but where their work has often resulted in assassinations or been stifled by self-censorship.

"It's been a history of great battles," said Fidel Cano, the editor, a man with big, bushy eyebrows and rumpled clothes. "This paper has been on the verge of closing several times. And it has always found a way to get ahead and stay open. History repeats itself."

Among journalists, here and beyond, the paper's decision to go daily has generated something of a collective, "Say what?"

Newspapers in general are in deep trouble: plummeting circulation, slashed budgets, smaller staffs, less-substantial news. Many have closed, and others are struggling as the Internet, falling ad revenue and changing reader habits threaten paper and ink.

Reminded of this, Gonzalo Córdoba, the tall and stylish publisher, smiled and nodded.

"That's what people say: 'Papers are closing and look what these crazy guys are doing?' " Córdoba said. "It's a reality, and you can't block the sun with your hands."

Two years ago, he said, El Espectador hired a consultant to study its options. The verdict: El Espectador had a brand name, but remaining a weekly was not sustainable.

Published just on Sunday, the paper emphasized an eclectic opinion page and a handful of in-depth reports on the country's shadowy conflicts and the constant foibles of the political class.

The paper began a long climb back. In 2003, it lost nearly $8 million. By last year, losses slipped below $400,000. The Santo Domingo family, one of Colombia's wealthiest and the owners of the paper, gave the green light to go daily. The paper expects to break even in two years.