He proposed merging the television channels 2, 4 and 5 for profitability reasons leading to the formation of Tele Sistema Mexicano, with the Azcarraga family and Guillermo González Camarena as partners .

Due to financial difficulties of the Novedades newspaper, its sister publication The News closed its doors in December 2002 – after 52 years of serving Mexico's English-speaking community.

Novedades Editores' cash cow was the publication of its comic novellas, which are still popular reading material for Mexico's lower classes.

In the 1990s, the popularity of Novedades declined as it was widely considered to be an advocate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mexico's longest ruling political organ until Vicente Fox's presidential victory in 2000.

[2] It is noteworthy that not only the editorial was managed with a high standard code of ethics, probably unique to Mexico, but also the design grasped three awards of excellence from the SND's 32nd edition.

Its new editor, Malcolm Beith, lasted less than two weeks as he was fired after he published unprofessional editorial content (unsigned) about the former owner, Victor Jr., in its June 1, 2009 edition; on-line references [4] News content today is created with a mix of resources, including The News' own reporters, reporters from Rumbo, Cambio and Estadio and wire services.

Roger Toll, the editor during most of the 1980s, obtained the rights to insert The New York Times Week in Review, which was very popular with readers.

From its beginnings in the 1950s through the late 1980s, domestic information ranged from national business stories to garden parties hosted by members of the foreign community.

Stringers contributed local stories about ex-pats and community activities from Acapulco, San Miguel del Allende, Chapala and elsewhere.

Those local stories appeared in the weekly travel supplement called Vistas, which was edited for years by the late Joe Nash and Sally Sue Hulse.

The large diplomatic corp in Mexico City read the English-language daily carefully and many embassies used clippings in their reports back to their respective home countries.

Hamill, a former New York Post columnist, was fired after six months on the job for covering a student protest on Mexico City's main university, the UNAM.

A few staff members broke away in the late 1980s and started The Mexico Journal, which was published by the Spanish-language daily newspaper La Jornada.

(During particular hectic periods of the late 1980s and 1990s, Nelson acted as interim editor three times while continuing to write her three weekly finance columns).

Nelson, Mena and longtime yes-man Dan Dial, who eventually climbed into the editor's chair, were among only a few who affixed themselves to The News for any length of time.

Throughout The News history, the O'Farrill family always maintained ties with Washington, along with bitter memories of its expropriated financial and property loses in the Cuban Revolution.

The elder O'Farrill, Don Romulo, although rich and powerful, retained a sense of humility, humanity, and grace throughout his long life.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), however, was much more sophisticated and subtle, having developed their Latin American media campaign from at least the early 1950s, under the watchful eye of "Daniel James & Co."[citation needed] James, a CIA fixture in Mexico City society, had a phony public relations firm that was in constant contact with The News and some of its high-ranking editors.

So The News in the 70s and 80s maintained a delicate balance between the idealists on one side, some courted by the Russians and Cubans, among others; and the "survivalists," represented by those who were controlled either by fear of losing their jobs because they violated censorship, or by their ambitions fueled by CIA promises of power and "friendship."

The greatest struggle, however, was to keep The News a Mexican newspaper, and not as an extension of the U.S. Embassy press office, even if the highest levels of management weren't bothered by the prospect.

[citation needed] They knew who were recruited by the CIA, and shared some of that information with independent journalists, if it benefited their political objectives at the time.

There were moments when the newspaper opened up, particularly when Mexico was negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada.

Michael J. Zamba (a Washington, D.C., journalist and author of two published books on Mexico) joined the organization in 1990 and immediately made changes to the paper's design and staff.

Talented writers—such as Elizabeth Malkin, Eduardo Garcia, Peter Raeside, Laurence Iliff and others, as well as then first-time writers like David Luhnow—were brought into the newspaper.

During the historic 2000 elections, the publisher banned the publication of photographs of Vicente Fox, the PAN presidential candidate who was contesting the PRI's long-standing dominance.

Other major journalists currently working in international correspondence, including Peter Raeside, also passed through the doors of The News early in their careers.