La Nación () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, La Nacións main competitor is the more liberal Clarín. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argentina.

Its motto is: "La Nación will be a tribune of doctrine." It is the second most read newspaper in print, behind Clarín, and the third in digital format, behind Infobae and Clarín. In addition, it has an application for Android and iOS phones.

The newspaper's printing plant is in the City of Buenos Aires and its newsroom is in Vicente López, Province of Buenos Aires.

Overview

The paper was founded on 4 January 1870 (replacing the former publication Nación Argentina), by former Argentine President Bartolomé Mitre and associates. Until 1914, the managing editor was José Luis Murature, Foreign Minister of Argentina from 1914-1916. Enjoying Latin America's largest readership until the 1930s, its daily circulation averaged around 350,000, and exceeded only by Crítica, a Buenos Aires tabloid. The 1945 launch of Clarín created a new rival, and following the 1962 closure of Crítica, and the 1975 suspension of Crónica, La Nación secured its position as the chief market rival of Clarín.

Originally published in Bartolomé Mitre's home (today, the Museo Mitre), its offices were moved a number of times until, in 1929, a Plateresque headquarters on Florida Street was inaugurated. The publishing group today is headquartered in the Bouchard Plaza Tower, a 26-storey Post-modern office building developed between 2000 and 2004 over the news daily's existing, six-storey building.

The director of La Nación, Bartolomé Mitre (the founder's great-great-grandson), shares control of ADEPA, the Argentine newspaper industry trade group, and of Papel Prensa, the nation's leading newsprint manufacturer, with Grupo Clarín. The newspaper was part of the conflict between Kirchnerism and the media, when Lidia Papaleo denounced, endorsed by the Kirchners, that they would have been forced to sell Papel Prensa under torture during the Dirty War. Judge Julián Ercolini acquitted him in 2016, pointing that there was no evidence to support the claim.

The decline of La Nación has run parallel with the loss of political and economic power of the landowning upper middle class. It is still a medium for its interests, but its circulation has been cut in half and sales are decreasing at an average of 8% per year.

Awards

In 2019, the Society for News Design named La Nación as the World's Best Designed Newspaper, sharing the award together with The Sunday Times and The New York Times.

Circulation

thumb|220x124px | right |Logo of La Nación +, the newspaper group's television channel.

La Nacións daily circulation averaged 165,166 in 2012, and still represented nearly 20% of the daily newspaper circulation in Buenos Aires; the paper is also distributed nationwide and around the world.

According to third-party web analytics providers Alexa and SimilarWeb, La Nación's website is the 9th and 17th most visited in Argentina respectively, as of August 2015. SimilarWeb rates the site as the 4th most visited news website in Argentina, attracting almost 32 million visitors per month.

<gallery>

File:Diario_La_Naci%C3%B3n_(calle_San_Mart%C3%ADn).JPG|Former Building on San Martín 500.

File:Bouchard_Plaza_desde_el_dique.JPG|Former offices at Bouchard Plaza building.

File:Complejo Al Río Torre Sur - Vicente López.jpg|Headquarters from 2015, located in Vicente López, Buenos Aires Province.

</gallery>

Editorial stance

thumb | right | Headquarters in [[Olivos, Argentina|Olivos, Buenos Aires Province.]]

In its origins, La Nación was born as a partisan newspaper, to sustain the action of Bartolomé Mitre, former President of Argentina. It was one of the most influential in the country's political life until the first half of the century.

Mitre inspired an editorial policy opposed to discrimination and openly in favor of full equality between Argentines and foreigners.

During the two world wars, La Nacións editorial stance was clearly oriented in favour of the allied cause, and critical, in both cases, of the neutrality policy of the Argentine government. Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Charles De Gaulle were constantly portrayed on the pages as heroes of the cause for freedom.

It has been the Argentine newspaper that is most involved with the development of the agriculture, the most efficient sector of the national economy.<blockquote>The role of the newspaper a Nación in Argentina has been and is very rich. Fundamental to the culture of the country, a field in which it has performed an unimaginable work.</blockquote> According to Julio Maria Sanguinetti, a daily collaborator of La Nacion, “it has been a space for coexistence and a forum of ideas for conservative liberals, progressive liberals, social democrats, Christian democrats or even open-minded nationalists, that there is all of this in our political life, distributed in diverse parties or expression of individualities."

Always conservative in tendency, La Nación accompanied the resistance of the ruling classes to the changes that reality imposed.