Hoping to pacify those on the newspaper opposed to him, Arias told the meeting that selected him to replace the retiring, publisher, Anabelle de Rubinoff, that La Prensa would continue its investigations of government corruption. We will maintain the principles and values that oriented the foundation of a newspaper that was truthful, objetive and open to all opinions. Arias, son of former president Ricardo Arias, was one of the founding members of La Prensa in 1980. Founded to challenge the dictatorship of Manuel Noriega, La Prensa is unlike the vast majority of newspapers in Latin America inasmuch as it has more than 1,200 shareholders, none of whom can hold more than half a percentage of the total number of shares. It was felt that this structure would prevent the newspaper from being used for political purposes by any shareholder.
Employees are also shareholders.
Arias had accumulated enough proxy votes for the publisher's post that he ran unopposed. The newspaper has been so committed to exposing corruption that one of its first investigations after reopening in 1990, following the capture of Noriega by the United States military, was of the Panamanian news media itself. Gorriti, who went into exile after being arrested under the presidency of Alberto Fujimori in Peru, joined La Prensa in 1996. He was hired by the newspaper's then publisher, Johnny Arias, cousin of Ricardo Alberto Arias. Johnny Arias warned at a shareholders meeting March 22 that the board must maintain the independence of the newspaper.