The Influence of the U.S. Press on Mexican Journalism during the Mid-Nineteenth Century: The Impact of the Penny Press, 1833–1871

Abstract

The American press of the mid-nineteenth century exerted an undeniable influence on the development of Mexican journalism. However, historiography has largely focused on the impact of the U.S. newspapers that emerged during the 1880s and 1890s under the leadership of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Drawing on newspaper sources, this article reconstructs the ways in which Mexican journalists were influenced by the penny press, particularly through the publication and circulation of English-language newspapers with a propagandistic orientation during the Mexican–American War. This influence developed gradually and laid the foundations for the first stage of modern Mexican journalism, which would later culminate in the emergence of El Imparcial, founded by Rafael Reyes Spíndola in 1896 with the support of Porfirio Díaz.