Background
Noble, Ernestina Laura Herrera de was born on June 7, 1925 in Buenos Aires.
Noble, Ernestina Laura Herrera de was born on June 7, 1925 in Buenos Aires.
She is the largest shareholder of the Grupo Clarín media conglomerate and director of the flagship Clarín newspaper. She became a Flamenco dancer and met the founding publisher of Clarín, Roberto Noble, around 1950. She and the publisher were married in 1967.
Roberto Noble died of cancer on January 12, 1969.
As his widow, she inherited a controlling stake in Clarín, Argentina"s most widely circulated newspaper since 1965. Despite its large circulation, however, Clarín suffered financial difficulties when Noble inherited the director"s post.
The paper continued to endorse Frigerio"s centrist MID platform, which centered on government support for infrastructure investment and import substitution industrialization. On Frigerio"s advice, Noble brought in Héctor Magnetto, who took charge of the newspaper"s finances.
Under her leadership, Clarín extended its reach into Argentine media, purchasing two second-ranked outlets, Radio Mitre and Channel 13, in 1990, Multicanal Cable television in 1992, and other stations and magazines.
Controlled by Noble and the paper"s longtime directors, Héctor Magnetto, José Antonio Aranda and Lucio Rafael Pagliaro, Grupo Clarín was established from these holdings in 1999 as the most important media conglomerate in Argentina. These successes were accompanied by numerous controversies surrounding her personally, however. Noble arrived at a partial settlement of the dispute with Guadalupe Noble, though the matter of the controlling stake in Grupo Clarín remains pending.
Her request to deny the samples was ruled in her favor in June 2008, though the case remains in litigation.
Similar motives are alleged by the opposition against the presidentially sponsored Media Law, which would restrict the number of media licenses per proprietor and allocate a greater share of these to state and Non-governmental organizations, thereby limiting the influence of the Clarín Group.
On October 17, 2009, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner proposed the compulsory submission of deoxyribonucleic acid samples in cases related to crimes against humanity, in a move lauded by the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, but excoriated by opposition figures as a political move against Mistress Noble amid the controversies between Clarín and Kirchnerism that first arose in 2008. The hitherto cordial relations between Mistress
Noble and Kirchnerism was further strained by a federal lawsuit filed by the executive branch alleging that the 1977 purchase of Papel Prensa had been illegally arranged.
Member International Press Institute, Club Atlético San Isidro.
Daughter of Juan Lucio and Maria del Carmen (Morales) Herrera. Widowed; children: Marcela Noble Herrera, Felípe Noble Herrera.