There are tens of different and important newspapers in Bolivia, some of them stand out and are far away from the others in the country. These very popular newspapers mostly belong to the major cities that exist in the country, so the larger an urban area is, the more popular the newspaper is. Also, we have the arrival of Bloomberg in Bolivia, which may impact the news industry.
The most popular newspaper in Bolivia is El Deber, which is the main newspaper of Santa Cruz city, the largest urban area of the country. This is a large newspaper that covers the most important news in Bolivia. Other very popular newspapers are La Razon from La Paz and Los Tiempos from Cochabamba.
Next, we are going to see the most important aspects of the 7 most popular newspapers in our country, the quality they have, how extended they are, how to find and buy them, and the main details about each one of these critical newspapers in the country.
The most popular newspaper currently available in Bolivia
By far the most popular newspaper in Bolivia nowadays is “El Deber”, which is the main newspaper of Santa Cruz De La Sierra, a city with a population of around 1.5 million people, which this newspaper addresses.
El Deber newspaper most of the time covers not only the most relevant news inside its source city but also the most important news that happens in the whole country, it’s a large company with a lot of reporters and employees that do a good job in reporting all the most standing facts and events that occur in the country. You can see El Deber newspaper here (official link):
- https://eldeber.com.bo/ (Translated by Google: link).
This newspaper is available in both digital and physical versions. You can see it in its official website just mentioned above, but also by buying it at the newspaper stores located in many streets of most urban areas in the country, it will cost you about $1 (Bs7).
In Bolivia, there is no newspaper for the whole country
As you may expect, there doesn’t exist a newspaper that equally covers all the most important news happening in the country. The main newspapers here are mostly local, and the majority of the news they cover belongs to their source city. So, the most popular newspaper in Bolivia can’t be greater than its source city allows.
For example, El Deber from Santa Cruz covers mostly Santa Cruz news, let’s say, 70% from Santa Cruz and 30% from the rest of the country. La Razon from La Paz covers mostly La Paz news, around 75% from La Paz and 25% from the rest of the country.
Then, a newspaper for the whole country in Bolivia doesn’t exist, just local newspapers that in the first place cover mostly news from their own cities, and in the 2nd place news from the rest of the country, and each newspaper is only very popular in its source city.
The top 7 most popular newspapers in Bolivia
1) El Deber
As you may expect, the most popular newspaper is also the main newspaper of the largest Bolivian city, Santa Cruz De La Sierra. So, this newspaper is by default the most popular and important in the country.
This newspaper is also a large company that has enough resources to cover more country-level news or events that happen in other regions and cities. As we said before, Santa Cruz has around 1.5 million people, and most of these people go by default to El Deber newspaper to get the news of the day.
But no matter where you are in the country, you’ll be able to find this newspaper for sale in most newspaper stores and kiosks in downtown areas of other cities, also you can get the online version of El Deber here:
- https://eldeber.com.bo/ (Translated by Google: link).
2) La Razón
La Razón is the most popular newspaper in both La Paz and El Alto cities, these 2 cities together have a population of around 1.5 million people, but in El Alto city La Razón is less popular than you may expect, giving up market share to El Diario, El Extra and other local smaller newspapers.
So, for this less popularity in El Alto city, La Razón turns out to be the 2nd most popular and important newspaper in Bolivia, not very far behind El Deber. Also, this newspaper actually is a smaller company than El Deber, so it can’t cover as much news as the first one can cover.
With almost the same population La Razón also loses an important market share against El Diario and Pagina Siete, which are 2 other very important newspapers from La Paz city, something that does not happen with El Deber in Santa Cruz, which has almost no large competitors in its market.
Anyway, La Razón offers great quality in regards to the info and news it provides and covers also many news from other regions and cities first hand, this is a newspaper that like El Deber won’t disappoint you. You can get the online version of La Razón here:
- https://www.la-razon.com/ (Translated by Google: link).
Physical versions of the newspapers in this list are also available at reasonable prices of $1-$1.5 in newspaper stores and kiosks in any major urban area of Bolivia.
3) Los Tiempos
Los Tiempos is the main newspaper of Cochabamba City, the 4th largest city in the country, with a population of around 850,000 people. It’s also a local newspaper that covers mostly news from the city and rural areas of the Cochabamba department.
Los Tiempos also covers the most important national and regional news, but with a lot less depth and with less quality than El Deber or La Razón newspapers. This is because Los Tiempos is a much smaller company that is very focused on its city and its region to be stable and profitable.
Then, if you want to get the best news from Cochabamba city you should try to buy and read this newspaper, but for country-level news, you’ll be better with El Deber, La Razón, or even Pagina Siete. You can get the online version of Los Tiempos here:
- https://www.lostiempos.com/ (Translated by Google: link).
4) El Diario
El Diario is the 2nd most popular newspaper in La Paz and El Alto cities, far behind La Razón. This newspaper is a lot more focused on covering local news from these 2 cities, and also news that matters the most to low to middle-income people.
Many of the country-level news that you can find in this newspaper are in most cases repetitive and simplified versions of more extended reportings that newspapers like El Deber and La Razón normally have.
On the other hand, to know very locally important news from La Paz and El Alto cities, like an incident in a certain street and similar events, you’ll be better off by reading this newspaper. You can get the online version of El Diario here:
- https://www.eldiario.net/portal/category/nacional/ (Translated by Google: link).
5) Página Siete
This is the 3rd most popular newspaper in La Paz, but not very popular in El Alto City. Pagina Siete also does a good job when covering nation-level news, but is still behind El Deber and La Razón in this matter.
Página Siete stands out in 2 ways: it covers very well all sorts of news from La Paz City and also pretty well country-level news from other cities and regions. Despite this, this newspaper is not as popular as La Razón and El Diario in La Paz and El Alto.
So, as you can see Pagina Siete is a good source for both country level and La Paz city news, but not as popular as other ones mentioned above. You can get the online version of Pagina Siete here:
- https://www.paginasiete.bo/ (Translated by Google: link).
6) Opinión
Opinion is the 2nd most popular newspaper in Cochabamba City. It almost only covers local news from the city and some rural areas inside the Cochabamba department. This is a small news company that hasn’t have enough budget to, by first hand, cover news from other regions of Bolivia.
So, generally what this newspaper does is repeat reports and news that other more important newspapers like El Deber or La Razón have done. Anyway, Opinión enjoys enough popularity in Cochabamba as it properly covers highly local and specific events that only matter to the people of this city.
If you want to know about very specific news from Cochabamba and very local news that mostly targets low to middle-income people, Opinión newspaper will be a good way to go. You can get the online version of Opinión here:
- https://www.opinion.com.bo/ (Translated by Google: link).
7) El Día
Very far behind El Deber in popularity, we have another newspaper from Santa Cruz city, El Día newspaper. This is also a small company that is difficult to find for sale in other parts of Bolivia and doesn’t have a real impact outside Santa Cruz city.
Compared to El Deber, El Día is quite small and also a much less popular newspaper even in Santa Cruz, nevertheless, it’s still bigger than any other newspaper yet not mentioned here and the 7th most popular newspaper currently available in the country.
We have to mention that El Día newspaper always has room for very important country-level news, but it’s mostly very focused on local news from Santa Cruz. You can get the online version of El Día here:
- https://eldia.com.bo/ (Translated by Google: link).
Other important newspapers in Bolivia
As we said before every major local city or urban area in Bolivia has its own local newspaper that covers news from this region. Other popular newspapers in Bolivia for their local audiences are:
- Correo Del Sur (Sucre and Chuquisaca)
- La Patria (Oruro)
- El Potosí (Potosí)
- El Salar (Uyuni)
- El País (Tarija)
- La Palabra Del Beni (Trinidad and Beni)
- Sol de Pando (Cobija and Pando)
- El Alteño (El Alto city)
- Montero Noticias (Montero city)
Blomberg Linea just arrived in Bolivia
In May 2022, this worldwide well-known news company just started to cover news and do first-hand reports from Bolivia, in the economic, corporate, and financial fields.
We have seen interesting reports covering some economic aspects of the country, in a very fresh and unique way, but these are still just a few, as Blomberg Linea is also covering news from other 15 South and Central American countries, offering general reporting for the region.
You can read the news for Bolivia in the economic and financial space that Bloomberg Linea has here:
- https://www.bloomberglinea.com/tags/bloomberg-linea-bolivia/ (Translated by Google: link).
More details about the newspapers in Bolivia
Other important aspects of the Bolivian newspapers are:
- They are in general very locally oriented.
- You can find the most important ones in any major urban area of Bolivia.
- Almost all of them offer an online version.
- Some newspapers cover very well country level news (El Deber, La Razón, Página Siete)
- They cost around $1-$1.5 per unit.
- The smaller newspapers cover highly local news, even from certain streets and neighborhoods.
In general:
- If you want to find well-covered and detailed country-level news, go to El Deber, La Razón, Página Siete, and to some extent Los Tiempos.
- If you want to get general local news and a general perspective of what’s happening in the main cities of Bolivia, also go to the above newspapers.
- If you want to know highly local news, oriented to the low to middle-income people in Bolivia, go to the smaller newspapers.
Conclusions:
In this review of the most popular and important newspapers of Bolivia, you’ve seen that currently, 2 large newspapers do a good job of covering both country-level and local-level news from their source cities. There are El Deber from Santa Cruz and La Razón from La Paz.
You’ve also seen that there are other several popular and important newspapers, mostly locally oriented that cover in a very good way local news, like Los Tiempos from Cochabamba, El Diario from La Paz, Página Siete from La Paz, Opinión from La Paz and El Día from Santa Cruz.
Also, you realized that the larger the urban area in Bolivia is, the more popular its main newspaper becomes, as well as in the whole country, as it happens with El Deber (from Santa Cruz 1,5 mill. hab.) and La Razón (from La Paz and El Alto 1,5 mill. hab).
Finally, you’ve known that Bloomberg Linea just started to cover news in Bolivia in the economic and financial fields and that many other very locally oriented newspapers are important for their local audiences.
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