A Newspaper War in Mexico City   

A couple of floors above a row of trendy Mexico City shops selling haute couture, Persian rugs and sushi, Ron Buchanan sat in his new office and plotted the downfall of a Mexican institution.

For more than four decades, Mexico's English-speaking community has read the Mexico City News, a 17,500-circulation daily established in 1950. Now Buchanan, managing editor of the fledgling Mexico City Times, has his sights set on winning a newspaper war against an entrenched rival.

"There isn't any doubt that we want to establish ourselves as a better paper than the News," says Buchanan, a veteran Scottish reporter who worked for several British national newspapers before coming to Mexico, where he eventually acquired ambitions of toppling the country's biggest and best English-language paper.

After months of strategic planning, the Times, owned by Editor and Publisher Fernando Gonzales Parra, made its debut in September, immediately distinguishing itself from its competitor.

"The recipe we're using to beat the News is to try and have more controversial articles than the News has ever dared to print," says Buchanan.

More controversy is just one of the attention-grabbing techniques in the Times' arsenal. Size is another. A broadsheet as opposed to the News' tabloid format, the Times is seeking to establish itself as a more cosmopolitan paper while allowing the News to maintain its monopoly on community and social affairs.

In its push to dominate Mexico's English-language newspaper market, the Times staff has vowed to cover the news in a way that is alien to the dozens of Mexican dailies that for years have served as government mouthpieces or status symbols for their rich owners. The News itself, despite its well-founded reputation as a breeding ground for future foreign correspondents, has frequently been the target of complaints about toeing the government line. Readers also have complained about the News' sloppy presentation.

In spite of its faults, the News won't be easy to beat. The paper has a fiercely loyal readership, and has survived other challenges, including that of the Times during a short-lived previous incarnation during the mid-1960s.

Practically speaking, the Times has an uphill fight: The new paper has only nine reporters to cover Mexico City, a massive metropolis, compared with the News' 25. And even though Mexico City is home to more than 20 million people--an estimated 500,000 of them English speakers--conventional wisdom has it that the city simply doesn't have room for two English-language newspapers.

This is not to say that the News hasn't been affected by the Times' arrival. The majority of reporters and editors hired by the new paper have at one time or another worked at their crosstown rival, and a few News veterans have already jumped ship to work for the Times. It is rumored that News staffers were recently awarded an unexpected pay raise, which many attribute to management's efforts to prevent more defections.

News editors, however, say the competition doesn't frighten them in the least. Too many times before, they say, competitors with similar ambitions have come and gone.

"I am not worried at all," says News Editor Dan Dial. "We've been here for 45 years, through good and bad times. Anybody who wants to come along and knock us off our perch is going to have a very daunting task ahead of them."

Dial points to the fact that the News has survived Mexico's economic crisis in good shape as a sign of the paper's staying power. With the News' advertising up and circulation holding steady, Dial says he agrees with analysts who believe that now is no time for an English-language media outlet to attempt a start-up in Mexico. Other Mexico media institutions, such as Mexico Insight, a weekly English-language magazine, and Express Radio, a popular U.S.-style radio station, folded in the past year as a result of the peso's steady devaluation.

But apparently the Times, with a circulation somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000, is confident that such pessimistic predictions will prove off target. The new paper is aiming for the higher end of Mexico City's newspaper market, hoping to lure the dollar-owning consumers who have been more successful at weathering the economic crisis.

Times editors insist that their new venture will survive and prosper, even if it does take time. "In my opinion it is going to take a full year to reach break-even point," says Fausto Zapata, chairman of the Times' board. "We are confident and our confidence rests on solid foundations."

The News begs to differ. "Personally, if I were to subscribe to this newspaper I wouldn't buy anything more than a three- or a six-month subscription," Dial says, "unless I had it in writing how I could get my money back after they stop printing."