La Prensa (Panamá)

What is La Prensa?

La Prensa is a daily newspaper published by Corporación La Prensa, S.A., known as Corprensa. Corprensa states: “La actividad principal del Grupo es la publicación, distribución y venta de los diarios La Prensa y Mi Diario, la impresión de todo tipo de artes gráficos y la venta de publicidad incluida en los diarios, los subproductos suplementos y los diarios en las páginas digitales y redes sociales.” It states that its common shares are registered with the Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores under Resolución CNV No. 189.^[2]

Ownership. La Prensa's page on why readers can trust it states: “Ninguna persona o grupo posee más del uno por ciento del total de las acciones emitidas y en circulación, por tal razón no existe una persona que ejerza control de la empresa”. It adds: “Al 31 de diciembre de 2020, había 1,628 accionistas, de los cuales 32 ostentaban la propiedad del 31.7% de las acciones en circulación.” The board has nine members elected by the shareholders' assembly.^[4] The 2020 shareholder count is the most recent the page gives.

The same page calls La Prensa “el diario de referencia de Panamá”, a description Corprensa also uses on its products page. That is the publisher's description of its own title.^[4][3] Its sports coverage is published on the path prensa.com/deportes of the parent site.^[1]

What does La Prensa cover?

As retrieved on 26 September 2026, under a masthead dated “Panamá, 26 de septiembre del 2026”, the sports section carried items posted minutes earlier on an injury to Kylian Mbappé, Italy's defeat by Belgium, the Panamanian footballer Luis Mejía, Edwin Núñez's surfing gold at the Juegos Suramericanos Santa Fe 2026, and the coach Thomas Christiansen accepting responsibility for the draw with India.^[1]

Baseball. La Prensa reported the final of the 2019 Caribbean Series in Panama City on 10 February 2019, under the headline “Panamá es el campeón de la Serie del Caribe 2019”. It reported that Toros de Herrera beat Las Tunas of Cuba “por marcador de 3 carreras a 1” at the Estadio Rod Carew, and that “Panamá buscaba su segunda corona tras la obtenida en 1950 con el Carta Vieja Yankees”.^[5]

As retrieved, the section's items concerned football and surfing; the 2019 report above is its baseball coverage.^[1][5]

How large is La Prensa's audience?

No audited readership survey or web audit for Panama was retrieved, so the figures here are the publisher's own. Corprensa's products page states that La Prensa “mantiene un tiraje promedio superior a los 10,000 periódicos diarios, incluida una base de más de 8,000 suscriptores”, an average print run of more than 10,000 copies a day with more than 8,000 subscribers. The page gives no date or auditor for the figure.^[3]

The same page describes the website, prensa.com, as offering “Inmediatez en la cobertura noticiosa local e internacional” and reader interaction through comments; it gives no traffic figure.^[3] No audited traffic figure for prensa.com was retrieved.

Since when has La Prensa existed?

La Prensa's page on trust states: “El diario La Prensa, fundado el 4 de agosto de 1980, es el diario de referencia de Panamá.” It names its founding directors as Ricardo Arias Calderón, Ricardo Alberto Arias, Fabián Echevers, Ricardo Bermúdez and Roberto Eisenmann.^[4]

Corprensa states that the company “fue constituida mediante la Escritura Pública No.11,758 del 19 de octubre de 1979, bajo las leyes de la República de Panamá e inició operaciones en diciembre de 1979.”^[2] The incorporation of the company and the founding of the newspaper are two different dates, and both are the publisher's own account.

The trust page sets out four founding policies, the first being “la atomización del accionariado en cuotas de 1%, para que ninguna persona o grupo tuviera control de la línea editorial”, and the others financial sustainability, a separation between commercial management and editorial direction, and editorial autonomy.^[4]

Why does La Prensa matter in Panama's sport?

La Prensa publishes a daily sports section and has reported Panama's club titles, including the 2019 Caribbean Series won by Toros de Herrera on home soil.^[1][5] Its publisher also publishes Mi Diario, a tabloid that Corprensa describes as carrying “alto contenido en deportes”.^[3]

Reporters Without Borders names La Prensa among “The main newspapers” of Panama, with Panamá América, Crítica, Crítica Libre and La Crónica, and states that they “are concentrated in Panama City, the capital”. RSF also states: “Historically, the major Panamanian media have been owned by members of the country's economic elite.”^[6] Those are the monitor's statements.