The
Valparaíso edition of was founded by
Pedro Félix Vicuña (
Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna's father) on 12 September 1827, and was later acquired by
Agustín Edwards Ross in 1880. The Santiago edition was founded by
Agustín Edwards Mac Clure, son of Edwards Ross, on 1 June 1900. In 1942 Edwards Mac Clure died and his son
Agustín Edwards Budge took over as president. When Edwards Budge died in 1956, his son,
Agustín Edwards Eastman, took control of the company. Edwards Eastman died in 2017, leaving the company in hands of his son Cristián Edwards del río. During the 1950s, El Mercurio planned to introduce television into Chile, applying for licenses in Santiago and Valparaíso, expected to launch by 1958. El Mercurio SAP owns the Chilean afternoon daily newspaper
La Segunda, which published news with sensationalist and confrontational language that was considered inappropriate for .
CIA funding received funds from the
CIA in the early 1970s to undermine the Socialist government of
Salvador Allende, acting as a mouthpiece for anti-Allende
propaganda. and the extent of the paper's cooperation with the CIA: Support reached to the highest levels of the US government. When the paper requested significant funds for covert support in September 1971, "...in a rare example of presidential micromanagement of a covert operation, Nixon personally authorized the $700,000—and more if necessary—in covert funds to ."
1988 to the present Former journalists of have been crucial in the creation of various new newspapers in Chile including
Diario Financiero in 1988,
El Líbero in 2014, and
Ex-Ante in 2020. 's building in Valparaíso was set on fire by protesters in October 2019 during the
2019 Chilean protests sparked by rise in transportation cost. == See also==