EL PAÍS doubles down on its commitment to the United States
The leading Spanish-language newspaper is expanding its team with reporters who have established track records in US media. Paola and Jorge Ramos join as contributors to a project that will strengthen new formats
EL PAÍS, the leading Spanish-language news outlet, is doubling down on its commitment to the United States, adding new reporters in the country’s key hubs and contributors such as Paola and Jorge Ramos, who join the effort to grow and strengthen a high-caliber team. Aimed at a Spanish-speaking community of more than 60 million people, the initiative deepens the newspaper’s international strategy and consolidates its presence in the Americas, where it has editions in Mexico, Colombia and Chile, as well as EL PAÍS in English, and some 100 journalists.
The United States is going through a moment of extraordinary political and social complexity, marked by political polarization, institutional tensions and growing pressure on the free practice of journalism. Against this backdrop, and with an eye on expanding coverage of Donald Trump’s second term and the 2028 election race, EL PAÍS is investing in rigorous, independent journalism, which Spanish-speaking readers need now more than ever.
“We are going to do great journalism in the United States. There are millions of readers who need verified, high-quality information in Spanish right now, and who expect a pluralistic view of their country and of what is happening in the world,” said Jan Martínez Ahrens, editor-in-chief of EL PAÍS.
The project, which is in a period of expansion, is considered strategic for PRISA, the publisher of EL PAÍS, and is supported by a global network of more than 400 journalists around the world. “It’s an edition that looks to the future, that aims to be at the cutting edge and that complements the national perspective with a global one. Our readers will get enormously detailed and wide-ranging coverage of what is happening in their country, but also in Latin America and Europe,” Martínez Ahrens said.
“It’s a diverse country, and our newsroom reflects that. We have different accents, we come from different countries, and that helps too, because we offer different perspectives. The Spanish-speaking community in the United States is not a monolith,” said María Sánchez Díez, deputy editor and head of the edition.
“We have something going for us: we speak in Spanish, we write in Spanish, and we have an audience of millions of people who are not a priority for the big media outlets,” added Sánchez, who recently joined the newspaper after spending the past five years at The New York Times, where she was a senior editor for digital storytelling, developing innovative stories with the newsrooms in New York, Washington, San Francisco, London and Seoul.
With more than a decade of experience in the United States, Sánchez Díez came to The New York Times from The Washington Post under Marty Baron. She was also part of the team that published 2°C: Beyond the Limit, a multimedia series on climate change that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.
The expansion aims to build on and strengthen the work EL PAÍS has been doing in the United States since its founding, an effort that was significantly stepped up two years ago. Since its launch, EL PAÍS U.S. has focused on coverage centered on the needs of the growing Hispanic population, combining national news with a local focus. Its team of journalists works in majority-Hispanic states such as California and Texas, as well as in New York, Florida and Washington, D.C.
Now, the existing team of reporters will be joined by a multinational group of journalists with extensive and distinguished careers in U.S. media. Their addition will strengthen bilingual reporting, expand on-the-ground coverage and boost the use of new visual formats to connect with an audience of more than 60 million people.
For this new chapter, EL PAÍS will have two contributors who are leading figures for the Latino community in the United States: Jorge and Paola Ramos, the prominent father-and-daughter journalist duo. Through analysis and on-the-ground reporting, they will help bring the stories shaping the agenda of the U.S. to a global audience.
“The Latino community, the migrant community, is the main story,” said Paola Ramos. “Our duty as journalists is to inform the community, in Spanish, and also to earn its trust. In 2017, the current president already said that journalism is the enemy of the United States. The biggest threat is the one we don’t see, the one facing facts, data, reality. Our duty is to defend that truth.”
The strengthening of the U.S. edition reflects the commitment EL PAÍS has made to the Americas over the past decade, which was expanded five years ago with the creation of new editions in the region.
“We want to speak to an audience in Miami and Los Angeles, but also to keep speaking to readers in Mexico City and Bogotá,” said Javier Lafuente, deputy editor for the Americas. “We are not going to lose our global essence. Our team is very diverse and plural, and it works with the reality of each country in mind, because that’s the only way to tell a country’s story from the inside.”
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