The 1849 founding and the Gold Rush origin
According to TVN’s coverage of La Estrella’s 173rd anniversary, the newspaper’s origin story begins en plena fiebre del oro, when three travelers (J.B. Bidleman, S.K. Henarie, and J.F. Bachman) got stranded in Colón [1]. They purchased a printing press destined for Lima’s El Comercio, which had also been stranded (the surname spelling differs between TVN’s “S.K. Henarie” and the Playa Community article’s “S. Heranie” for the same person; both forms refer to the same individual and S.K. Henarie is used consistently here per its first-attributed source (TVN)). On February 24, 1849, they published the first edition of the Panama Star in English, four pages costing one real. The newspaper’s origin is a small but characteristic Gold Rush story: three travelers stranded on the isthmus, a printing press that had been intended for Peru, and a small market of gold-rush transit passengers and canal-construction workers who wanted news from home.
The bilingual and trilingual evolution
The Star’s evolution into a bilingual and trilingual paper is a distinctive feature of its early history. TVN records that in 1853 the Star was renamed the Daily Panama Star, began daily publication, and added the Spanish edition La Estrella de Panamá. In 1855, the paper became trilingual with the French section L’Etoile de Panama, which Eduardo Quirós later described as el primer periódico trilingüe del continente americano [1]. The trilingualism reflected the international composition of the Panama transit trade: English-speaking travelers from the U.S. East Coast, Spanish-speaking residents of Panama, and French-speaking travelers from the French canal project.
The Star-Herald merger and the 19th-century consolidation
The Star’s principal competitor in the 19th century was the Panama Herald. According to the Playa Community’s article on the English-language press in Panama, the Panama Herald was founded on April 15, 1851 by James H. Middleton and Colonel Edmond Green; the two papers merged on May 2, 1854 into The Star & Herald [2]. The 1854 merger produced The Star & Herald, a long-running English-language newspaper in Latin America, which continued publication into the 20th century.
The Star & Herald’s mid-20th-century circulation figures are remarkable. According to the Playa Community article, by 1955 the paper had a weekly circulation of 26,000 and a Sunday distribution of 31,000 [2]. The paper’s weekly circulation of 26,000 placed it among the major English-language newspapers in the Caribbean basin, and its Sunday distribution of 31,000 reflected the paper’s position as a principal English-language publication for the Canal Zone community and the U.S. business community in Panama City.
The Spanish-language press
The Spanish-language press in Panama developed alongside the English-language press but with a different demographic anchor. La Estrella de Panamá, the Spanish-language sister publication of the Star, was a leading early Spanish-language paper, and it continued publication through the 20th century. According to TVN, in the 21st century La Estrella de Panamá is operated under Fundación Publicando Historias, which holds 51 percent of the shares [1]. The 21st-century ownership structure, with a foundation holding the majority, is an unusual arrangement in Latin American journalism and reflects a deliberate effort to preserve the newspaper’s institutional independence.
Several other Spanish-language papers have been important in Panamanian history. La Hora, El Panamá América, La República, and La Prensa have each been significant contemporary Spanish-language papers, and each has its own institutional history. The Spanish-language press in Panama has been substantially more politically engaged than the English-language press, and several Spanish-language papers have been closely identified with specific political parties or factions.
The English-language press and the West Indian community
The English-language press in Panama has a particular history that is closely tied to the West Indian community. According to the Playa Community article, in 1904 Clifford Bynoe, a native of Barbados, founded the first printing press in the City of Colón and published The Independent [2]. Bynoe’s The Independent was the first West Indian-owned newspaper in Panama and was the start of a substantial English-language press tradition in the Caribbean-coast cities.
A leading West Indian-owned newspaper was The Panama Tribune. According to the Playa Community article, The Panama Tribune was founded in 1928 by Sidney Adolphus Young (1898-1959) after he quit the Panama American when told that no matter how much work he did, his employer could never think of paying him the same salary as a white man. The Tribune ran for forty-four years (1928-1960) with circulation of about 6,500. Young received La Orden de Vasco Núñez de Balboa. The Tribune’s 44-year run and the founding story of its publisher, being told he could not be paid the same salary as a white man, are emblematic of the broader history of racial exclusion in the Canal Zone [2].
Other figures and newspapers in the English-language press
The English-language press in Panama included several other important figures. According to the Playa Community article, George Westerman’s papers form the George Westerman Collection at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, and Arcelio Hudson published El Nativo in Colón until his death at age 86 in 1997 [2]. Westerman’s papers at the Schomburg Center are the principal archival record of the Afro-Antillean press in Panama, and Hudson’s El Nativo was a Spanish/English bilingual publication that served the Afro-Antillean community of Colón through the late 20th century.
The American-owned English-language press continued to develop alongside the West Indian-owned press. According to the Playa Community article, the American publishing history begins with J.B. Bidleman, S.K. Henarie, and J. Bachman founding The Panama Star on February 24, 1849; the Star came out three times a week in English between 1852 and 1853; La Estrella de Panamá debuted on February 1, 1852; the Panama Herald was founded on April 15, 1851 by James H. Middleton and Colonel Edmond Green and merged into The Star & Herald on May 2, 1854 (with the 1955 circulation figures noted above); and in 1925 Nelson Rounsevell founded The Panama American, reaching 12,800 units [2]. The Panama American’s 12,800 circulation in 1925 made it a major American-owned paper in the Caribbean basin.
The modern press landscape
The contemporary Panamanian press is dominated by the Spanish-language papers, with the English-language press having shrunk substantially since the post-1979 transition. According to the Playa Community article, today The Panama News, founded by Eric Jackson, is described as an excellent and highly respected on-line read [2]. The Panama News is an online-only English-language publication that has taken on the role that The Star & Herald and The Panama American played in earlier periods, but with a much smaller staff and a digital distribution model.
The contemporary Spanish-language press includes La Estrella de Panamá (still in publication under the Fundación Publicando Historias), La Prensa, La República, El Panamá América, and several other papers. The contemporary press landscape has been substantially shaped by the post-1989 political opening and by the post-1999 economic growth; press freedom in Panama is generally regarded as established, though several journalists have faced legal actions that have drawn international concern. The institutional framework that supports the contemporary press is substantially different from the framework that supported the 19th-century English-language press, and the contemporary press’s relationship with political power has been a recurring theme in Panamanian political life.
The Diario del Pueblo and the early Spanish-language press
The Spanish-language press in Panama developed substantially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to TVN’s article on La Estrella’s anniversary, Demetrio H. Brid, who started as a canillita (newspaper vendor) at age 13 in 1872, convened the cabildo on November 3, 1903 for Panama’s separation from Colombia, and was recognized as the primer presidente de facto de la República [1]. Brid’s role in Panama’s separation from Colombia in 1903 illustrates the press’s political importance in the early 20th century.
The 1918 death of Gaspar Octavio Hernández (a poet and editorialist who died on November 13, 1918 in the newspaper’s editorial office) is commemorated as the Día del Periodista in Panama [1]. Hernández was a leading poet-editorialist of his generation, and his death in the line of duty became a marker of the profession’s commitment to its craft.
The contemporary press landscape and political pressure
The contemporary Panamanian press operates in a substantially different environment than the 19th and 20th-century press. The post-1989 political opening produced a more pluralistic press, and the post-1999 economic growth produced more resources for the press to draw on. The contemporary press has been subject to a series of political pressures that have generated international concern. Several journalists have been the subject of defamation lawsuits and other legal actions that have been characterized by press-freedom organizations as politically motivated.
The contemporary press’s relationship with the government has been particularly fraught around coverage of corruption, money laundering, and the Panama Papers and Pandora Papers leaks. The 2016 Panama Papers leak, coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists [3], had substantial implications for the Panamanian financial sector and produced a wave of investigative journalism that the press carried out under significant political pressure. The press-freedom questions the leaks raised have continued to shape the post-2016 press landscape.
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