 The newspaper was founded in 1980 by I. Roberto Eisenmann Jr., who had returned to Panama in 1979 after living in exile for three years in the United States.Created to oppose the military dictatorship of Omar Torrijos, the paper published its first issue on August 4, 1981.In 1982, "Prensa" editor Carlos Ernesto González was sentenced to five months' imprisonment for an article critical of President Aristides Royo, in which he accused the president of being behind an armed attack on the "Prensa" building by Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) supporters.