REFORMA - History

History

Reforma was founded in 1993, as an offshoot of El Norte, the noted Monterrey-based daily. Reforma was the first newsgroup in Mexico to separate its commercial division from its journalism division. This allowed for a greater independence in journalism, and helps journalists resist the temptation of writing favorable notes on sponsors.

When it was founded, on November 20, the newspaper pressured unionized newsstands to sell the paper on that day. Since November 20 is the Mexican Revolution day, an obligatory public holiday in México, the unions refused, and so Reforma had to be sold on the streets by journalists and celebrities, as a protest against what they considered "a boycott".

Reforma changed the traditional distribution of newspapers because of its independence from the unionized newsstands and printed media resellers. It also was innovative because of the inclusion of people of all political opinions in its editorial pages.

The newsgroup is 85 years old. It all started with the founding of El Sol in April 1922, followed by El Norte in 1938, Monterrey's Metro in 1988, Reforma in 1993, Palabra and Mexico City's Metro in 1997, Mural in 1998, Saltillo's Metro in 2004 and Guadalajara's Metro in 2005.

Grupo Refoma's independent journalism drew the ire of the powerful Mexico City's carrier union barely a year after it was born. This syndicate controls distribution of all newspapers in the capital city and was traditionally used by the political system to bring down any paper that was deemed unacceptable. The carried union boycotted the distribution of Reforma in Mexico City in October 1994. Grupo Reforma decided to create and independent distribution channel to sell Reforma in Mexico City's streets. The support of the readers was incredible: intellectuals, artists and regular folks joined Reforma's personnel in the process to create this channel. Dozens of people went to the streets to sell the paper, withstandin the verbal and even physical violence of the carrier union. Currently, Reforma is distributed independently to the homes of 85,000 subscribers, to supermarkets and other retail outlets and to readers in Mexico City's streets. The paper's daily circulation averages 200,000 copies.

Grupo Reforma's dailies have an open journalism model that is very different from any newspaper in the world. One of the cornerstones of this model are the editorial boards. Each section of all of the papers has an editorial board, which is a group of readers and leaders in the section's area of interest that get together weekly or bi-monthly to set the section's editorial agenda. For example, the editorial board of Reforma's national section may include a diputado (member of house of representatives), a senator, several politicians, some members of NGO's, as well as normal readers, like housewives, students, etc...

The boards have complete liberty of action in setting what the paper is covering. The board is led by each section's editor, so the board members are working with the person who is directly responsible for the daily operation of the section.

Each board session is divided in two parts. In the first one, the board members criticize the content of the session since the last time they met. What was done right? What needs to be corrected? What was plainly wrong? These and other similar topics are dealt with in this first discussion.

During the next step in the session, the discussion centers on the work ahead. What stories should the section be working on? Who should the paper be interviewing? Are there any events that are worth covering? It is in this part of the meeting where the editorial agenda is defined by the group.

Each year, 850 people are part of the 70 editorial boards that define the editorial agenda for all of Grupo Reforma's papers. More than 8 thousand people have been members of an editorial board during the 15 years that they have been in operation. Participation is voluntary, so no payment is given out to the board members. The "payment" they receive is to see how they indeed are setting the agenda for some of the most influential newspapers in Mexico and thus collaborating to transform the country. The boards are renewed every year, but a couple of the members are chosen by the same board to stay on, so there is some continuity with any work in progress that was left behind. Every quarter, the editor gives his/her board a balance of all the suggestions they've provided and how they have been implemented in the section.