Media Moves

HuffPost Mexico debuted today featuring on its home page a man dressed up as a Mexican superhero holding a caricature of Donald Trump, mocking the presidential candidate’s trip to Mexico.

The site launched just one day after Trump’s meeting with president Enrique Peña Nieto, sparking outrage in Mexico – something the new online pub was quick to capitalize on.

Arianna Huffington was in Mexico City to oversee her last launch as HuffPost’s editor-in-chief, before moving on to launch her new venture Thrive Global.

In a blog post introducing the newest international edition of Huffington Post, she wrote:

“There’s no better time than now to bring HuffPost to Mexico. At a time when Donald Trump is running on a platform that includes literally putting up a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, while calling Mexicans killers and rapists, it’s more important than ever to open up the conversation between our two countries, build bridges, and counteract this false and dangerous narrative. Our mission to inform, inspire, entertain and empower — informar, inspirar, entretener y empoderar — couldn’t be more relevant in Mexico right now.”

Laura Manzo is the editor-in-chief of HuffPost Mexico. She was previously the editorial director of Quién magazine and editor of InStyle Mexico.

The unveiling of the new Huffington Post property comes three months after striking a partnership with Grupo Imagen Multimedia to launch HuffPost Mexico.

HuffPost Mexico, whose editors and reporters are based in Mexico City, replaces HuffPost’s U.S. Spanish-language portal Voces, which was shut down in January.

At the time, a company spokesperson acknowledged they were “transferring HuffPost Voces to HuffPost Mexico, a new edition we’re preparing to launch that will serve our Spanish-speaking audience in Latin America,” but would not respond to questions about how they planned to serve their Spanish-speaking audience in the U.S.

Cristian Farías is joining The Huffington Post as legal affairs reporter. A lawyer by training, he’ll be covering Supreme Court and legal affairs. His first day is Monday, August 3.

He’ll continue to be based in New York and report to Senior Enterprise Editor Nick Baumann.

Before accepting this job, Cristian was a contributor for NYMag, covering Obamacare, same-sex marriage, and other major decisions of the latest Supreme Court term.

“Now more than ever people are looking to how the law and the Supreme Court can shape important aspects of their lives and their freedoms,” Cristian tells Media Moves. “I’m really lucky that I’ll get to shed some more light on it all, no matter if the final outcome is good or bad.”

In addition to NYMag, during the past year his work also appeared in The New Republic, El Diario and Fusion..

He previously worked as Managing Articles Editor for the City University of New York Law Review.

Before that, he focused on gaining legal experience at the Vera Institute of Justice, Federal Defenders of New York, New York State Court of Appeals, and U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Prior to law school, Cristian worked as a probation officer.

Laura Barrón-López is leaving her job as Energy and Environment Reporter at The Hill, after spending a year and a half at the D.C.-based political publication. Her last day is March 6.

She starts a new job as a Congressional Reporter at the Huffington Post’s D.C. bureau on March 23.

“I am excited to be joining The Huffington Post politics team and am eager to get to work,” Laura tells Media Moves. “Working at The Hill has been an incredible, invaluable experience and I am fortunate to have worked with such a powerhouse team. I will miss covering energy and environment issues but am ready for the next challenge.”

Before joining The Hill, Laura was a reporter wrote for E&E Publishing’s Greenwire and interned at the Orange County Register, The Oregonian, and Roll Call.

Miguel Ferrer has been hired to be the first Executive Producer, Digital for the yet unnamed Univision/ABC News cable network.  He will oversee all digital properties and work closely with the ad sales, distribution and editorial teams. He starts October 30 and will divide his time between New York and Miami.

According to Univision, the President and CEO and other management team executives will be announced later this year.

Miguel was most recently the Managing Editor of the Huffington Post’s Black Voices, Latino Voices (English-language) and Voces (Spanish-language) sites.

Prior to his roles at the Huffington Post, Miguel spent more than 4 years as Director of Programming for AOL Latino. He was previously business development manager for People en Español and worked in international marketing for Warner Music Latin America.

The new network is expected to launch in the summer of 2013, with editorial coverage focusing on the most relevant issues for U.S. Hispanics.

The joint venture will have the support of Enterprise Florida, the State of Florida’s economic development agency, as well as The Beacon Council, Miami-Dade County’s economic development partnership.

As of today, AOL Latino no longer exists. Yesterday was the final day of the Spanish-language spin off launched by AOL Corp. in 2003. The site has been rebranded as Huffpost Voces. 

People that log in to www.AOLLatino.com will now automatically be redirected to Huffpostvoces.com.

The front page of today’s HuffPost Voces includes a welcome message in Spanish by Ariana Huffington.

Miguel Ferrer, Editor of the English-language site HuffPost Latino Voices, will also be Managing Editor of Voces.

According to a Portada story, the AOL Latino editorial team is expected to remain in place. Miguel told reporter Laura Martínez that Voces is not a Spanish-language version of the Huffington Post, nor a translation of Latino Voices, but rather “an addition; it is a totally different site that will help nurture content across the HuffPost platforms.”

Read Laura’s musings on the end of AOL Latino in a column she wrote today for Fox News Latino.