THE Buenos Aires Herald had a reputation for fearlessness. During Argentina’s “dirty war” in the 1970s it was the only newspaper that denounced the disappearances of thousands of Argentines under the military regime. The editor, Robert Cox, and news editor, Andrew Graham-Yooll, went into exile. Mr Graham-Yooll wrote “A State of Fear”, a harrowing account of the descent into dictatorship. But the Herald, the capital’s English-language newspaper, could not survive technological progress. On July 31st the 141-year-old paper said it would close.
《布宜諾賽勒斯先驅報》之前以不懼權貴而著稱。 在20世紀70年代阿根廷“骯髒戰爭”期間， 該報是唯一一家譴責在軍人政權統治下有數千名阿根廷民眾消失的媒體。
William Cathcart, a Scot, founded the Buenos Ayres Herald for Britons drawn to Argentina to work on the country’s expanding railways. Its first edition was a single sheet, with advertising on the front and shipping news on the back. As its coverage expanded, it sometimes scooped richer Spanish-language rivals.
《布宜諾賽勒斯先驅報》由蘇格蘭人威廉·卡斯卡特為在阿根廷修鐵路的英國人創辦。 第一期報紙只是一個單頁， 正面是廣告， 背面報導航運新聞。 隨著報紙覆蓋面的擴大， 有時甚至比資本更雄厚的西班牙語報紙先發出報導。
It had counterparts across Latin America. Argentina’s first English-language paper was the Buenos Ayres Standard, started by two Irish brothers in 1861; it stopped publishing 98 years later. The Daily Journal, founded by an American, served readers in Caracas from 1945 until 2008. The Peruvian Times, launched in 1908, survives in digital form. The News in Mexico City, established in 1950, still has a paper edition.
拉美還有其他類似于英文報紙。 《布宜諾賽勒斯標準報》是阿根廷第一份英語報紙， 由一對愛爾蘭兄弟于1861年創辦，
The English papers were sometimes outspoken when the Spanish-language press was censored, perhaps partly because their writers could easily take refuge in their home countries. Many British and American journalists who went on to cover the region as foreign correspondents got their start at the local English papers.
當西班牙語報紙遭到審查時， 英文報紙有時依舊會坦誠報導。 一個原因是由於撰稿人可以很容易地返回祖國避開風頭。 很多以國外記者身份報導當地新聞的英美記者都是為該地區的英文報紙工作開始職業生涯的。
As the number of Anglophone immigrants fell, tourists and expats became the papers’ main readers. English-medium news became less necessary for visitors when the internet let them browse their hometown papers from abroad.
隨著英語母語移民的減少， 該報紙的主要讀者群體轉而是遊客和外派人員。 互聯網的發展讓遊客能在海外流覽本國媒體的報導， 英語新聞就更加沒有必要。
The Herald changed owners several times in the 2000s before ending up in 2014 as part of Grupo Indalo, whose owners are close to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s populist president until 2015. Government advertising (and dedicated journalists) kept the paper alive; its editorial line became more left-wing, but not slavishly supportive of Ms Fernández. But the government of her centre-right successor, Mauricio Macri, hit Grupo Indalo with a tax demand for 10bn pesos ($570m). With estimated monthly losses of 2m pesos, the Herald briefly became a weekly before saying it would close.
在21世紀初， 《布宜諾賽勒斯先驅報》幾次易主， 從2014年底至2015年， 該報成為印達羅集團旗下媒體，
The Herald and its kind are being replaced by publications run by nimbler entrepreneurs, providing information on local events mainly to tourists and expats. In Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, two English-language newspapers have been founded in the past decade. The Bubble, a website based in Buenos Aires, has plans to expand to Brazil and Mexico. Today’s Cathcarts are bullish. But few expect their publications to last 141 years.
《布宜諾賽勒斯先驅報》及同類報紙正慢慢由更加靈活企業家旗下的出版物替代， 報導的消息及當地新聞主要為遊客及外籍專家服務。 過去10年裡， 有兩家英文報紙在哥倫比亞首都波哥大創刊。 布宜諾賽勒斯的網站The Bubble計畫將業務擴展到巴西和墨西哥。
編譯：汪麗晨
編輯：翻吧君