About Infobae

Infobae

Infobae is an international Argentine online newspaper published in Spanish and headquartered in Buenos Aires. Launched in 2002 by businessman Daniel Hadad, it is Argentina's leading digital-native news site and one of the most read Spanish-language online newspapers worldwide. Unlike Argentina's historic national newspapers, which began in print and later built websites, Infobae developed as an internet publication, and the website became the enduring part of the business after its short-lived print companion was sold.

The site covers general news, politics and economy, together with society, world affairs, sport, technology, entertainment and opinion. From its Buenos Aires base it has expanded with local editions and newsrooms beyond Argentina, including Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Spain and the United States. Its scale at home is confirmed by independent audience research: the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024 ranked Infobae as Argentina's top online news brand, accessed by 40 percent of respondents, ahead of the website and apps of cable news channel TN.

Overview

Infobae is classified as an online newspaper, with Daniel Hadad listed as its owner and Spanish as its language. Its home market is Argentina, where readers follow it for continuously updated national news, but its reporting and editions now serve Spanish-speaking audiences across Latin America, Spain and the United States. Wikipedia describes its political alignment as centre-right, with anti-Kirchnerism and anti-Peronism also listed in its summary of the outlet, a categorisation that places Infobae within Argentina's sharply polarised media debate.

That position matters because Argentina's media system is dominated by large private groups and marked by political polarisation, a context the Reuters Institute has repeatedly documented in its country reporting. In that environment Infobae stands out for two reasons. First, it is a digital native rather than the online arm of a surviving print title. Second, it has remained free to read, without the paywall or membership system adopted by a number of its Argentine competitors.

Origins in Buenos Aires Económico

The roots of Infobae lie in Buenos Aires Económico, known as BAE, an Argentine daily founded in 1998 by Armando Torres as an alternative to the established Buenos Aires financial newspapers El Cronista and Ámbito Financiero. Following poor sales, Daniel Hadad and Sergio Szpolski bought the paper late in 2001. A year later Szpolski transferred all his shares to Hadad.

Under Hadad the paper changed its name to Infobae Diario and turned into a general newspaper, and in parallel the website Infobae.com was launched in 2002. The paper and the accompanying website became the basis on which the media group Grupo Infobae was founded. The two products then diverged. While the website attracted an increasing number of visitors, the print edition ran behind in sales, and in 2007 Hadad decided to keep the website for himself, revert the paper edition to its original name and put it on sale. Later in 2007 Szpolski bought the newspaper operations and integrated them into his own media group. From that point Infobae's future was online only.

Founder Daniel Hadad

Infobae's founder, Daniel Hadad, was born on 28 November 1961 in Buenos Aires, to a family of Syrian origin. He holds degrees in law and journalism from the Catholic University of Argentina and completed postgraduate studies at the University of Navarra in Spain. He also received a scholarship from the Fundación Universidad Río de la Plata to continue his education in Washington, D.C. He is described as an Argentine lawyer and businessman involved in telecommunications and media, and as the founder of one of the most read Spanish-language online newspapers worldwide.

Hadad built and acquired a succession of radio stations, online outlets and television channels in Argentina alongside Infobae, including Radio 10, the television channel El Nueve, which he acquired in July 2002, and the news channel Canal 5 Noticias, known as C5N. During Argentina's 2001 political and economic crisis he had gained prominence as host of Después de hora, a programme that covered events in real time and established him as a notable figure in political television analysis. In April 2012 Hadad sold C5N and a group of radio stations including Radio 10 to Grupo Indalo, led by businessman Cristóbal López. Infobae, by contrast, he kept, and he remains its owner.

Becoming a Digital-Native Newspaper

The 2007 separation from print settled Infobae's identity. With no daily paper to support, the title could concentrate entirely on the habits of online readers: fast publication, continuous updating and stories written for the web and for mobile reading rather than adapted from a printed page. Its own description of its work stresses news in real time, with information, videos and photos about the most relevant events and protagonists of the moment in Argentina and the world.

That digital-first character also shaped how Infobae handled video. Rather than investing in its own television infrastructure, the Reuters Institute noted, Infobae put programmes on YouTube, including a documentary on the last days of Diego Maradona which reached more than 3 million viewers. The example shows a newsroom willing to distribute journalism on the platforms its audience already used, instead of building a conventional broadcast operation. In August 2022 Infobae marked 20 years since its launch, celebrated in coverage that described it as the most read Spanish-language news site in the world.

Coverage and Editorial Sections

Infobae is a general-news publication, and its range is visible in the sections it has organised its journalism around. A catalogue description of the digital newspaper lists sections including Hoy, Política, Sociedad, Opinión, Mundo, Deportes, Tecno, Teleshow and Tendencias — in English terms, today's news, politics, society, opinion, world, sports, technology, entertainment news and trends. The company's own professional profile lists its specialities as politics, economy, society and America, reflecting the weight it gives to public affairs, economic news and regional coverage.

Politics and economy remain the core of the Argentine edition, covering government, congress, elections, markets and the cost-of-living questions that dominate national life, alongside society news from across the country. Around that core sit international reporting, sport, technology and entertainment, as well as opinion columns in which different professionals set out arguments on the most important topics of the day. Its content production has ranged as widely as interviews with Lionel Messi in the United States and in-depth segments with Pope Francis in Vatican City, work cited in a case study of how its remote teams of editors, journalists and photographers collaborate on video, photo and audio material.

International Expansion

From Buenos Aires, Infobae expanded globally with local editions in New York City, Mexico City, Miami, Bogotá, São Paulo, Lima and Madrid, an expansion led by Marcos Stupenengo. In the terms used for its country editions, that network covers Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Spain and the United States, as well as Brazil. Its own site description summarises the structure as the most read Spanish-language news site in the world, with newsrooms in Mexico City, Madrid, Bogotá, Lima and Buenos Aires, and correspondents in the principal cities of the world.

The expansion increased Infobae's international audience and turned a national Argentine portal into a regional publisher. Each edition applies a common brand and publishing model to a different national news agenda, so a reader in Mexico City, Bogotá or Lima finds local politics, economy and society news under the same masthead as the Argentine edition. A separate case study of the company likewise records that it successfully expanded to Mexico, Peru, Colombia and Spain, providing information on current topics around the globe. Few Argentine outlets have built a comparable Spanish-language footprint outside their home market.

Audience and Standing in Argentina

Infobae's leading position in Argentina is not only a matter of self-description. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024 found that the two top online news outlets in Argentina in early 2024 were Infobae, accessed by four out of ten respondents, or 40 percent, and the website and apps of cable news channel TN, which 30 percent reported having visited. Neither outlet had a subscription programme at that time. The same research series had placed Infobae first in earlier years as well, including 38 percent weekly use reported for early 2023, when TN also ranked second.

The Reuters Institute's Argentina reporting provides the wider setting for those figures. Print circulation has continued to fall in Argentina — Clarín, the country's top-selling print newspaper, reported average daily print circulation of 51,000 by the end of 2023 — while digital subscriptions at legacy titles have grown. Against that backdrop, a free digital native reaching 40 percent of online news respondents illustrates how far audience habits have moved from print towards continuously updated websites and apps, and why Infobae's early commitment to the internet gave it a lasting advantage over rivals that began as newspapers.

Free Access and Business Approach

A defining feature of Infobae in the Argentine market is what it does not charge for. The Reuters Institute has described Infobae as the top news brand in weekly usage and the only major online news outlet in Argentina with no paywall or voluntary subscription model, at a time when legacy print media such as Perfil and El Cronista maintained paywalls and digital natives such as Cenital and elDiarioAR relied on membership systems. A Reuters Institute analysis of Argentine journalism put the model plainly: Infobae is a site with free access whose revenues come from traffic and advertising.

That choice links Infobae's editorial and commercial strategies. A free site depends on reach, so the continuous, high-volume publishing that serves readers checking news throughout the day also sustains the traffic on which advertising income rests. It also lowers the barrier for new readers in its expansion markets, where the brand can be sampled without a subscription decision. The trade-off, visible across the Argentine industry in the Reuters Institute's reporting, is that outlets without reader revenue remain exposed to the advertising market, while competitors with paywalls earn more from smaller, committed audiences.

The Venezuela Blocking Episode

Infobae's regional reach brought it into conflict with the Venezuelan government in 2014, in an episode documented by Wikipedia and reported at the time by the BBC. On 10 October 2014, Conatel, Venezuela's National Commission of Telecommunications, blocked access to Infobae in Venezuela after the site published photos of the corpse of the recently murdered United Socialist Party of Venezuela member Robert Serra. Conatel said the publication was against Venezuelan law, was dishonourable to Serra and his family, and constituted psychological warfare.

Infobae responded by accusing the government of President Nicolás Maduro of a double standard, pointing to what it described as the promotion and publicising of photos of dead Palestinian children in order to accuse Israel of war crimes. The dispute is the best-known censorship episode in Infobae's history and underlines the political sensitivity of its cross-border audience: a decision taken by an Argentine newsroom in Buenos Aires had immediate consequences for readers in another country, whose regulator could cut off access nationwide.

Place in Spanish-Language Media

Infobae's significance rests on the combination of its Argentine leadership and its Spanish-language scale. It began in 2002 as the website companion of a struggling Buenos Aires financial daily, survived the sale of that paper in 2007, and grew into an international online newspaper with editions across the Americas and in Spain. Along the way it became, in the description carried by Wikipedia and its own site, one of the most read Spanish-language online newspapers worldwide, and it marked its twentieth anniversary in 2022 still under its founder's ownership.

For readers in Buenos Aires and across Argentina, Infobae is the default starting point for breaking national news, politics and economy for a large share of the online audience — 40 percent of respondents in the Reuters Institute's 2024 survey. For readers in Mexico City, Bogotá, Lima, Madrid, Miami and New York, it is a local edition of the same Argentine-born brand. That dual identity, a national leader that became a regional publisher without leaving Spanish or adopting a paywall, is what makes Infobae one of the defining digital news outlets to emerge from Latin America.