La Hora

What is La Hora?

La Hora is a Guatemalan newspaper based in Guatemala City. Its own site describes it as “Un diario 100% digital con noticias de Guatemala y el mundo”, and its footer names Oscar Clemente Marroquín as president and Pedro Pablo Marroquín P. as director general.^[2] Its “Quiénes somos” page lists its staff and its office in zona 4 of Guatemala City, and gives no founding date or ownership statement.^[3]

Its sports coverage is published on a path of the parent site, lahora.gt/deportes.^[1]

What does La Hora cover?

As retrieved on 26 September 2026, the sports path carried items dated 25 and 26 September 2026. They included a live report of Jamaica against Guatemala in the first round of the Concacaf Nations League, a report headlined “Guatemala ilusiona, lucha y cae 3-2 ante Jamaica en su debut en la Nations League”, an item on the national team playing another official tournament away from the Estadio Doroteo Guamuch Flores, and European football.^[1]

The national stadium. An investigative item of 26 September 2026, by Sergio Morales, reported that the national team would play its home Nations League matches at the Estadio Manuel Felipe Carrera, El Trébol, against El Salvador on 28 September and Suriname on 5 October, because the Estadio Nacional Doroteo Guamuch Flores “sigue cerrado a la práctica deportiva”. It reported that the Confederación Deportiva Autónoma de Guatemala awarded the stadium's renovation on 11 October 2024, that the works were due for delivery on 7 December, that the contract was then rescinded by agreement with the builder, and that the Confederación signed a cooperation agreement with the United Nations Development Programme in March 2026. Those are the newspaper's reports.^[9]

The site's other sections are national news, investigation, opinion, economy, international news and a well-being section, listed alongside Deportes in its menu.^[2]

How large is La Hora's audience?

No audited readership or web-audience figure for La Hora was retrieved, and no Guatemalan press readership survey was found.

The newspaper's own editorial of 22 December 2025 describes its present period in these words: “esta la Quinta de su historia en la que, lejos del papel, los linotipos y la imprenta, alcanzamos a una audiencia que se cuenta por millones”. That is the newspaper's own claim, and it gives no measurement source.^[5]

Reporters Without Borders records the change of format. Its 2026 entry for Guatemala states: “The COVID-19 pandemic worsened the situation, leading to the disappearance of the print version of the daily La Hora, which now exists only in a digital format.”^[6]

Since when has La Hora existed?

La Hora marked its centenary in pieces dated 19 June 2020, among them one by Oscar Clemente Marroquín titled “La fecha del Centenario”.^[4] Its editorial of 20 June 2026 states: “Ayer se cumplieron 106 años de la fecha en que se publicó la primera edición del diario La Hora”, and names Clemente Marroquín Rojas as the founder.^[8] The founding date is the newspaper's own account; no independent record of the first issue was retrieved.

Funding and direction. The same editorial of 20 June 2026 states that the paper has relied for the past six years on investment from the Guatemalan entrepreneur Luis von Ahn; that is the paper's own statement, and no register entry on its ownership was retrieved.^[8] Its editorial of 22 December 2025 announced that Sonia Doménica Velásquez Navas “se hace cargo de la Dirección Editorial”, and described La Hora as a “medio de comunicación fundado hace 105 años por Clemente Marroquín Rojas”. It describes the present as the paper's fifth period, away from print.^[5]

Why does La Hora matter in Guatemala's sport?

La Hora publishes daily sports coverage of the national team and of international football on a site that, on its own description, is its whole newspaper.^[1][2]

Two monitoring bodies have written on the conditions of the Guatemalan press in which it works. Reporters Without Borders, in the same 2026 paragraph that records the end of La Hora's print edition, states: “The persecution of the founder of elPeriódico, José Rubén Zamora, forced the newspaper to lay off many of its employees and to stop publishing a print version.”^[6] The Committee to Protect Journalists reported on 15 May 2023 that elPeriódico “would cease online publication on Monday, May 15”, that Zamora had been in pre-trial detention since 29 July 2022, and that he went to trial on 2 May 2023 on money laundering charges.^[7] Those are the monitors' statements; elPeriódico is a different newspaper from La Hora.