“Small newspapers” and “big newspapers”: The critical view of the Chilean press according to the satirical penny press, 1880-1910

Abstract

This paper analyzes the textual and graphic strategies used by some of the main satirical newspapers of Chile’s capital (which referred to themselves as the “small daily newspapers”) to describe the activities of the press from the last two decades of the 19th century onwards and, above all, to challenge the stance taken by the “big daily newspapers”. By exposing the suspect relationships between financiers and journalists, and pillorying the work they did in the newsrooms, the dominant position held by such publications such as El Ferrocarril and El Mercurio began to erode. The most hard-hitting satirical texts and images were, however, aimed at the Catholic newspapers, whose writers were depicted as irrational and, therefore, unable to partake in the public space, in contrast with the editors of the “small newspapers”. The target of these attacks shifted around 1905, when the feud against clericalism began to cool off and the satirical press took a turn towards classist language, which would serve as the lens through which journalists interpreted their task in the years to come.

Keywords: satirical penny press, Latin American modern journalism, Chilean journalists c. 1880-1910.