The Nation (Chile)

La Nación was a daily circulation newspaper published in Santiago, Chile. It was founded on January 14, 1917 by the lawyer and liberal politician Eliodoro Yáñez, together with senators Alfredo Escobar Campaña, Augusto Bruna Valenzuela and Abraham Gatica Silva. It was of general interest, with national distribution, and had a weekly edition called La Nación Sunday (LND). It is the first Spanish-speaking medium to migrate to a purely digital format, currently published under the name lanacion.cl.

It was published by Empresa Periodística La Nación S.A., which also publishes the Official Gazette of the Republic of Chile, however it represented a marginal part of its income, since these essentially came from sales of the Official Gazette and the company's printing division. This was one of the main arguments of the Government to end its circulation in 2010.

The newspaper's Shareholders' Meeting decided on Monday, September 24, 2012 to close it permanently and liquidate all the assets it owned, after 95 years of operation. However, the digital edition of the newspaper still exists.

History

Birth and expropriation

The newspaper La Nación was created in 1917 as a way to deliver information and compete with other Santiago newspapers (El Mercurio, Las Últimas Noticias, El Diario Ilustrado, among others). According to one of its founders, Eliodoro Yáñez, it had to give "preferential attention to social problems that affect the part of the population that represents the work activity and economic progress of the country". After seven years, the newspaper was left in the hands of Yáñez alone.^{[citation required]}

In July 1927, during his dictatorial regime, General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo expropriated the newspaper, with which it became the government's official media outlet and spokesperson. After this, its rightful owner, Eliodoro Yáñez, left Chile, remaining in exile until 1931, when Ibáñez resigned on July 26 of that year. The next day, the newspaper announced his suspension. The government of Juan Esteban Montero took steps to return La Nación to Yáñez, which were frustrated after the fall of Montero and the proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Chile on June 4, 1932, which The newspaper resumed publication on the 8th of that month. Finally, Eliodoro Yáñez died on July 26 of the same year, without having received any compensation for the expropriation incident (despite this, the following day's edition dedicated its cover at his death). To this day, the State of Chile has not assumed debt with the descendants of Eliodoro Yáñez, as far as the newspaper La Nación is concerned.^{[citation required]}

Between 1929 and 1930, the building that housed the newspaper for much of its history was built. It was designed by the architect Roberto Barceló Lira, with the help of the engineer Alberto Covarrubias, and built by the American firm Fred T. Lay.

Changes during the military dictatorship (1973-1990)

Logo design The Cronist.

The newspaper circulated uninterruptedly until September 11, 1973, and 6 days later the newspaper was seized by the Chilean Armed Forces. Between October 11, 1973 and August 31, 1975, the newspaper appeared under the name La Patria. On September 8, 1975, El Cronista began to circulate, headed by journalist Silvia Pinto and considered the successor to La Nación and La Patria. It was not until June 3, 1980 (almost 7 years after its last edition) that it was renamed La Nación as such, however, it continued with its numbering as normal.

During the decade of the '80s, La Nación became the official outlet of the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, including various propaganda writings and publications on several occasions. Likewise, and imitating the model imposed by the Ercilla Magazine, it began to give out books by prominent writers for free.

Period of the Concertación governments (1990-2010)

From a staunch defense of the military dictatorship, from one day to the next, on March 12, 1990, the newspaper changed to a center-left line. On March 5 and 6, 1991, La Nación published in its entirety the "Rettig Report," released by President Patricio Aylwin on March 4 of that year.

During the 1990s, La Nación achieved very high sales on certain occasions, especially when it published the results of the Academic Aptitude Test (PAA), SIMCE, or housing subsidies. Currently, the results of the University Selection Test (PSU, which replaced the PAA) are published by El Mercurio; those of SIMCE, by La Tercera; and those of the housing subsidy, by La Cuarta.

Government of Sebastián Piñera and closure (March to December 2010)

Units of the Diario La Nación in 2010.

In September 2009, then-presidential candidate Sebastián Piñera, of the center-right Coalition for Change, expressed his annoyance with the coverage that La Nación gave to the Concertación candidate, Eduardo Frei Ruiz -Tagle, going as far as to state that he had "the firm conviction that the best thing for Chile is to close the newspaper La Nación", in addition to preventing journalists from the newspaper from entering a massive campaign rally held at the Arena Santiago. However, after that, Piñera retracted, stating that "La Nación is going to be a pluralistic, respectful newspaper, and is going to have a similar statute and similar to that of TVN", which was confirmed after his election by his spokesperson, Ena von Baer.

The day Piñera assumed the presidency, March 11, 2010, new directors were appointed at the La Nación S.A. Journalistic Company, all close to the Coalition for Change; Daniel Platovsky (RN), who took over as Chairman of the Board, Cristina Bitar (UDI), Hernán Larraín Matte (son of Senator Hernán Larraín and Minister Magdalena Matte) and Gonzalo Müller (UDI). On September 1, 2010, Within the framework of the celebrations of the Bicentennial of Chile, La Nación launched a new design, in which it incorporated the extension ".cl" (Internet domain in Chile) in his name, remaining as "La Nación.cl", merging sections and acquiring a new typography.^{[citation required ]}

Rumors about the closure of the newspaper circulated again in mid-October 2010, which was confirmed by Daniel Platovsky on the 16th of that month, when he announced that the printed version of La Nación would no longer be published. circulate on an undetermined date, and that the medium will survive only in its electronic version. This would also imply the dismissal of a large part of the journalists who currently work in the newspaper.

On November 12, the Shareholders' Meeting approves the project to end the printed newspaper and continue only as an electronic newspaper, which is rejected by the company unions. On December 16, 2010, the last printed edition of La Nación was published, after which the medium remained exclusively as an information portal on the Internet, while the last edition was published on December 19. on paper from La Nación Domingo. On December 24, 2013, the Government of Chile opened the bidding process to finalize its sale.

Digital Edition

Newspaper Logo.

lanacion.cl was born as a digital version of the nationally distributed morning newspaper, La Nación. However, in 2010 it was decided to end the printed version of the newspaper, leaving only the online newspaper.

In September 2012, the Government of Chile called an extraordinary meeting of the shareholders of Empresa Periodística La Nación S.A. to decide the definitive closure of lanacion.cl.

The online newspaper continues to function to this day.

Supplements

During its history as a printed newspaper, the newspaper La Nación had supplements that covered different fields of information and entertainment. Some were the following:

• Point and Gol (1983-1984): Triomphe's predecessor magazine, began to circulate in 1983, also on Monday, but unlike the magazine created in 1986, it did not include the sports information of Sunday.
• World Sports (1984-1986): First team project led by Héctor Vega Onesime, was a daily sports supplement, which increased on pages on Monday.
• Veronica (1984-1990): Women's magazine published in the second half of the 1980s, circulated on Saturdays.
• Triomphe (1986-2009): the most emblematic of the daily supplements, Revista Triunfo was created on June 2, 1986, for the World Cup in Mexico and was led by the leading Argentine journalist Héctor Vega Onesime. Its great particularity is that it was a magazine that was delivered free of charge with the newspaper and its circulation was on Mondays, unlike the sports magazines that circulated on Tuesdays. Another advantage was the inclusion of the information and tabs of the games played on Sunday. On occasion, special magazines were published on different days on Monday, as for the title of Colo Colo in the Copa Libertadores de América 1991. In July 2002, Triunfo stopped circulating with the newspaper and began selling separately and with the sale of subscriptions.
• Fusta (1990-2009): Daily magazine, circulated on Friday, successor of the supplement World of the Hittite. From the same format as Triunfo, its contents were reports to characters from the national and international track and the national race programs of the national racetracks. In July 2002, Fusta stopped circulating with the newspaper and began selling separately.
• Archipegarecortables (1991-1992): Educational supplement based on trimmable sheets.
• Benjamin (1991-1994): Child supplement, drawn by Hernán Vidal (Hervi), in circulation since July 1991, included games, comics and curiosities.
• Daily Triomphe (1996-2000): From Tuesday to Sunday this supplement covered 50% of the newspaper. In addition to the coverage of football and other sports, the hípica pages, classified ads, services and film and theatre posters were included.

Owner

The newspaper is currently owned by Comunicaciones Lanet S.A., a communications company, whose legal representative is Luis Alberto Novoa Miranda.