Due to the disruption of import flows following the start of World War II, paper supplies outside of North America were severely limited. Together, the US and Canada distributed paper to publications that were thought to be „friendly“ to Allied objectives in Latin America. This strategic distribution of paper persisted into the early stages of the Cold War and even reached Europe. When national tariffs were up for renegotiation in Mexico in 1878, 1886, 1904, and 1930, the „paper question“ reappeared. President Lázaro Cárdenas founded the Productora e Importadora de Papel, Sociedad Anónima (PIPSA) in August 1935, with the responsibility of manufacturing and importing paper.

This presentation explores how news workers who sold dailies for Mexico’s major newspapers dealt with the paper scarcity. While policymakers in the US and Canada had significant influence over local and regional public spheres when determining where and to whom that low-cost paper was to be distributed, this study shows how news workers in the streets of Mexico discussed and put into practice the material conditions for press freedom. News workers‘ struggle for press freedom popularized the new abstract idea of information as a human right linked to the materiality of producing and sharing information on paper, which was acknowledged by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.