Mexican daily The News, which for more than half a century provided local and international news coverage in English in Mexico, announced Tuesday it was closing together with its parent company, Novedades newspaper.
In an editorial in both newspapers, the O'Farrill family said "economic imperatives" were forcing the closure of Novedades after 65 years and The News after 53 years.
"At this difficult time of farewell, it is also a time of reflection, and the obligatory reflection is that we are going without wishing it, but reality imposes itself on our will," the note said.
Veteran journalist Shari Rettig, who worked at The News for nearly 20 years, expressed sadness Tuesday at it being shut down.
"I'm sorry to hear about it. ...You invest time in a place and would like to see it continue," she said.
Rettig, who currently runs the mrnewsmx.com Web site, said what she most remembered was the people who worked at The News. Besides serving as as vehicle for an expatriate US community in Mexico of at least 100,000 people and the floating tourist population, The News served as a training ground for many journalists.
She mentioned Mexican journalist Alfonso Chardy who later went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Iran-Contra affair with a US paper.
Of exciting events, Rettig, who was at The News from 1972 to 1991, recalled the 1985 earthquake which killed more than 10,000 people in Mexico City.
Besides Novedades, several other Mexican newspapers such as Excelsior and Unomasuno, are facing economic tribulations amid a world crisis for the press.
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