Washington Post Co. Buys Spanish-Language Paper

By: Mark Fitzgerald The Washington Post Co. has acquired El Tiempo Latino, a Spanish-language weekly distributed free in the Washington, D.C., area and its suburbs.

Selling the paper was Farragut Media Group, principally owned by Armando Chapelli Jr., who founded El Tiempo Latino in 1991. The Friday paper has a free distribution of 34,000, audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The Washington Post Co. said the paper will operate independently under its current management and editorial team, led by Alberto Avendano, Kristen Shepherd, and Zulema Tijero.

"El Tiempo Latino ... will play a vital role in the Post's ongoing efforts to reach the growing local Spanish-speaking community," Washington Post publisher/CEO Boisfeuillet Jones Jr. said in a statement. "We are grateful to Armando Chapelli for entrusting the Post Co. with the newspaper that he has so carefully built over more than a decade."

The sales announcement, which did not disclose terms of the transaction, noted that the Post newspaper and El Tiempo Latin have had "an informal content-sharing relationship ... that has included the publication of relevant Post articles in translation in El Tiempo Latino."