by Paul Greene-Panama City, Panama
With everything totally focused towards blessing related activities, I thought it might be nice to share some news on one of the other major activities of Father's works in Latin America-the newspaper Tiempos del Mundo.
Most, if not all, of the open bureau offices of Tiempos del Mundo have had their inaugurations to officially introduce the newspaper to the general public. Several of the different countries where Tiempos del Mundo held an inauguration were successful.
Two countries (Nicaragua and Ecuador) had their inaugurations attended by the national president of their respective countries; in Panama our principal VIP speaker was the Minister of Government and Justice (along with Ambassador Phillip Sanchez). In Panama, our paper was, with one exception, very well received by the other sources of media in town (TV stations and newspapers). I got interviewed by two TV stations and appeared on the nightly news for a couple days in a row. Most bureau managers in other countries had similar experiences with their newspapers.
In Honduras, the bureau manager managed to introduce the newspaper to a contact who was a member of the Honduran Congress, who in turn introduced Tiempos del Mundo to the table of each and every Congressional member. Many of the congressman were very excited by this newspaper and made some very flattering public comments about it (a bit amazing considering the intensity of negativity towards our founder that exists in Central America at the moment).
The newspaper itself has a very beautiful graphic design that elicits a lot of "oohs!" and "ahs" from anyone who looks at it. It's also a consistent 80 pages every week (TDM is a weekly for now); there isn't a lot of advertising yet, so it's about 80 pages of real "meat"; there's more actual journalistic content in the newspaper than in an issue of "Time" or "Newsweek". I haven't had even a single person, no matter how negative they might be to our founder, criticize the newspaper itself.
Most newspapers in Latin America are run by people who have a certain "agenda" behind it; i.e. to support a particular political interest, promote the interests of some wealthy family, or some other less than altruistic motivation. Tiempos del Mundo is like a breath of fresh air; it's independent of nationalistic interests or the interests of a particular political party. I think this is really the thing that appeals to most people because our quality of journalism is very high.
We are also currently distributing the newspaper in New York City and Washington DC, and will be expanding to other American markets that have a sizable Spanish speaking population as well.