Luis Santos, Sr. joked with Journalism Dean Ann Brill during a recent visit that he should have been awarded a commission for the inflow of his family that came to the University after his graduation in 1970.

Santos, retired as CEO of Colombia’s largest and most flourishing media organization, El Tiempo, earlier this year. According to Grupo de Diarios America, the representative of the 11 leading newspapers in Latin America, El Tiempo had the highest national circulation in 2004, topping 314,000 readers. Santos was assistant sports editor for The University Daily Kansan from 1968 to 1969 and shared a photojournalism class with KU track legend Jim Ryun. Santos couldn’t attend commencement because there was none for 1970 graduates. Turmoil in light of the Student Union’s burning prevented that.

After Luis’ graduation, many more family members made the trip from Colombia to Lawrence, including recently-elected Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Luis’ son, Luis, Jr., now lives in Lawrence and his granddaughter, Alexandra, is the third generation to attend the University.

Santos stopped by The Kansan recently and talked about what drew him to Lawrence, the family-owned media company celebrating its centennial birthday in January and how his family has balanced that with having a Santos become president of its country.

Kansan: When you decided to study in the United States, what made KU your choice?

Santos: When I mentioned at a very young age that I wanted to study journalism, my father and my uncle used to say “Aah, you don’t have to study journalism, you’re born with it,” or “You get your hands full of ink” — that was the comment. And I insisted, “No, I want to give it a try, I want to give it a try, I want to study journalism overseas.” And I started looking for different options. At the time there was no Internet. There was a big book and you just went through all the pages and try to get information. I had preselected Syracuse, Marquette, Missouri and Kansas from what I had read in these big catalogues of the universities at the time. And by coincidence there was a meeting of United Press Correspondents in Bogota and I got to meet a lot of professional journalists. I was still in high school at the time and I started asking them, “Where would you recommend me to go?” Several of them were very aware with the William Allen White School of Journalism and they said, “Look, that’s a good place to go. Lawrence is a great place.” I had never been to Kansas. The only reference I had of Kansas was “The Wizard of Oz.”

Kansan: What kept your family coming back after you graduated?

Santos: When I came to KU my freshman experience in the dorms and the sports and the university environment that I found here, plus the friendliness of the Kansan people was such that I said, “Look, I’m just having a wonderful time, if you’re thinking about studying overseas you should give it a try here at Kansas.” So they started coming here and they certainly loved it.

Kansan: How has your family avoided a conflict of interest with family in media and government?

Santos: It’s been difficult. It’s been difficult because the whole purpose of the company is to acquire credibility and that your readers or your TV viewers and your audiences understand that you’re trying to be as impartial as possible as fair as possible in your coverage of the news. This is something my father and my uncle had worked very hard to do because in the 40s and the 50s, newspapers in Colombia were totally politicized. Party newspapers instead of independent newspapers. El Tiempo made a big effort to become independent, not party affiliated. If you had to criticize the government, you criticized the government. The first thing that happened to us is that Juan Manuel who had worked overseas came to work at El Tiempo, and while he was working at El Tiempo he received an offer to be the first minister of commerce. So when he accepted that he was going into politics it was quite a shock. It was very rough. A lot of family conflicts. We accepted that he had the right to do it, couldn’t tell him not to do it. From that moment on there was a rule in the family that whoever went into politics would never come back to the newspaper ever. And he was immediately cut off from all the meetings. He could not be on the board of directors and attend family meetings where business was the subject and that was accepted by the family. I think we managed it rather well. It wasn’t easy. We’ve had to manage the situation of family members in government. It’s been difficult. The family as a whole understood that what we had to do was defend the newspaper and we could do nothing to prevent these persons from going into government. They weren’t in government representing any of the interests of the newspapers. They complained that newspapers were much more severe with them than with other politicians, which was truthful in the sense that we wanted to send a message. But it was something that we had to live with. And I think we managed rather well.

Kansan: Colombia, like Mexico today, suffered much drug cartel-related violence in the 1990s. How did the media handle this and how might Mexican media learn from this?

Santos: They bombed the building of El Espectador, which was the No. 2 newspaper. They killed the editor of El Espectador. They kidnapped the managing editor of El Tiempo. They put bombs in a lot of newspapers but they never silenced newspapers. What newspapers did in agreement very rapidly is that every bit of news that had to do with the cartels and the drug lords would be published in every single newspaper and nobody signed it. So we took away the names to protect the reporters and every newspaper said we would print it on the front page or wherever. It was a massive situation so they couldn’t pinpoint one newspaper or the other and it worked quite well.

Kansan: What was the first place you went to eat when you last visited Lawrence?

Santos: That’s a good question. One of the beautiful things about Lawrence is it has maintained its feel and look. Last time I came I told my son to take me to Pizza Hut and we went to Pizza Hut but I ordered a beer and they did not have beers! I was really depressed that they did not have beer at Pizza Hut.

— Edited by Leslie Kinsman