Buenos Aires English-language Daily Turns 125

By: Mark Fitzgerald The story goes that Peter Manigault, now chairman of his family's Evening Post Publishing Co., was down in Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the 1968 annual meeting of the Inter American Press Association. "Conglomerates" were all the rage then, and a business friend had planted the notion that a chain of English-language papers in South America might make the beginnings of a respectable conglomerate. So one day Manigault walked into the offices of the Buenos Aires Herald and walked out with a 59.7% stake in the newspaper.

And that, they say, is how the publisher of The Post and Courier in Charleston, S.C., ended up owning the oldest English-language daily in Latin America, located 4,823 miles away as the crow flies.

On Sept. 15, the Herald turns 125 years old. It will be celebrated not simply for its longevity but also for its strong-willed independence -- a reputation considerably enhanced because of its Evening Post ownership. Robert Cox was editor of the paper when the Charleston company took control. "I expected to be fired immediately, of course," he said. "But they were superb. They were very, very supportive."

The new owner's resolve was soon tested as the left-wing terrorism in the 1960s was followed by a military dictatorship that killed thousands during the so-called "Dirty War" of the 1970s. Cox himself was briefly jailed for daring to publish the name of a left-wing guerrilla group, and finally forced to flee Argentina when death threats began to focus on his family. The Herald remained an exception to the rampant self-censorship in Argentine papers. "Never once did they say, you know, 'None of the other papers are printing what you are,'" said Cox, who is now assistant editor of the flagship Post and Courier.

Andrew Graham-Yooll, now the Herald's senior editor, was a reporter forced into exile when his name turned up on lists of those to be "disappeared." "To have worked for the Herald in those years is a source of pride," he said.

The indignities continued through the generals' disastrous 1982 Falklands War with Britain, when Argentine distributors refused to allow the English-language paper on newsstands. "They called it a 'patriotic gesture,' but our readers came to the office to buy a copy," Executive Editor Michael Soltys said.

While military censorship is long gone, the 3-year-old recession has once again made a grim business of newspaper publishing in Argentina. The 19,000-circulation Herald managed to escape the worst of the ad collapse until this year, Soltys said, largely because its traditional audience of English-speaking expatriate businessmen, who left when the economy soured, is being replaced by Argentines who want to practice their English. The paper, which managed to make money last year, likely won't break even this year, but will probably increase circulation.

The support from South Carolina remains the same, however: In 1998, the company bought out the Rugeroni family's stake in the Herald, giving it virtually 100% ownership.