Type Daily newspaper Editor David Boddiger Website www.ticotimes.net | Owner(s) Producciones Magnolia Founded 18 May 1956 | |
Format Online only (from 2012) | ||
The Tico Times is an English-language daily newspaper based in Costa Rica known especially for its environmental and investigative reporting. Established in May 1956, it closed its print edition in 2012 and became an online-only publication.
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History
The Tico Times was founded in 1956 as a student newspaper under the guidance of Elisabeth "Betty" Dyer at the Lincoln School in San José, Costa Rica's capital. The print edition "reached its heyday between 2005 and 2007, flush with real-estate advertisements aimed at foreign tourists during the U.S. housing boom". But after 56 years as a print weekly the newspaper became an "unlikely casualty" of the collapse of the housing bubble, and, on September 28, 2012, it announced on its website that it would no longer publish print editions. It laid off its entire 16-person staff, who worked for free as volunteers while the business was being restructured as an online-only publication. Additionally, the publisher acknowledged that "the lack of long-term vision and a series of fatal decisions" contributed to the print edition's demise.
The online incarnation of The Tico Times went online in January 2014.
Awards
The Times has won several awards, including the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA)'s Pedro G. Beltrán Award for distinguished service to the community (1981); a Special Citation from Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Prizes (1985); the National Conservation Prize (1990); the IAPA Grand Prize for Press Freedom (1995); the Salvation Army’s Others Award, for launching and supporting the Angel Tree program (1998); and the National Tourism Chamber Media Award (1998).