Trying to pin down The Reporter’s sliding birthday recalls off-the-chart accomplishments, cases of political ‘tinkering’

Allyn Hunt, former owner and editor of  this newspaper died February 3, 2022. This is the last of  a month-long series of his columns, covering some of his favorite topics the Reporter has published in his memory.

“How old are you?” people bluntly keep asking this newspaper. “Have you been publishing long?” query relative newcomers. “How long have you been around, anyway?” ask newly arrived spring visitors.

Both staff members and the owners stumble in answering such inquiries. The publisher and editor does this much more abashedly than do the staffers. After all, if anyone should know, he should.

But like most things in Mexico, the answer is more complicated than it seems right off.

The first issue of The REPORTER came out December 19, 1963. For those who take to detail and numbers, that’s 25 years, three months and 12 days ago [from the date of this article’s first publication, April 1, 1989]. But because its birthday fell at a time when the Christmas season loomed distractingly on the horizon, any mention of the “event”—if anyone was bold enough to call it that—was pushed into the new year, usually some time in January, often February. Soon everyone, including the owners became hazy about the paper’s birthday.

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