Southward Venture

"This is a path-breaking venture in American journalism," wired President Lyndon Johnson. "You have set for yourselves an important mission." That mission is to produce the first U.S. daily devoted exclusively to news from south of the border--the Latin American Times. Now in its third week of publication, the eight-page English-language Times is reporting such stories as a survey of the new, incendiary rebel newspapers in Santo Domingo and an expose of a cloak-and-dagger U.S. Army outfit in Chile that has ruffled feathers in the U.S. embassy. "In any given day," boasts Publisher Leonard Saffir, "the Times prints more news about Latin America than all the rest of the newspapers in the U.S. combined."

Saffir concocted the idea of the paper over a drink at a United Nations cocktail party, where he met the Latin American journalist Jorge Losada, who is now the Times's editor in chief. After 13 years as editor of the Spanish-language Latin American newsmagazine Vision, Losada was convinced that U.S. businessmen, with roughly $10 billion in investments in Latin America, were hungry for more news from the land where their money is. And Saffir, a longtime I.N.S. foreign correspondent, who had brought out the highly profitable New York Standard during the 1963 newspaper strike, was anxious to start another paper.

After collecting $300,000 in backing from both U.S. and Latin American businessmen, the Times assembled a 40-man staff, opened bureaus in Washington, Miami, Mexico City and Buenos Aires. The Times became a welcome client of seven wire services, whose Latin American reporters grumble that their stories are rarely published in the U.S. press. In addition, the Times carries guest columns by persons prominent in Latin American affairs.

At a price of 25-c- a copy ($50 a year) in the U.S., the paper is aimed primarily at the U.S. business community; most of its 4,000 subscribers are businessmen in the U.S. with interests in Latin America. Latin American subscription prices range from a forbidding $100 for air-freight delivery in Buenos Aires to $75 in Bogota.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.