Folha de S.Paulo (sometimes spelled Folha de São Paulo), also known as simply Folha (, Sheet), is a Brazilian daily newspaper founded in 1921 under the name Folha da Noite and published in São Paulo by the Folha da Manhã company. The newspaper is the centerpiece for Grupo Folha, a conglomerate that also controls UOL (Universo Online), the leading Internet portal in Brazil; polling institute Datafolha; publishing house Publifolha; book imprint Três Estrelas; printing company Plural; and, in a joint-venture with the Globo group, the business daily Valor, among other enterprises. It has gone through several phases and has targeted different audiences, such as urban middle classes, rural landowners, and the civil society, but political independence has always been one of its editorial cornerstones. Ever since 1986, Folha has had the biggest circulation among the largest Brazilian newspapers – according to data by IVC (Instituto Verificador de Circulação), in January 2010, circulation was 279,000 copies on weekdays and 329,000 on Sundays. In company with O Estado de S. Paulo and O Globo, Folha is regarded as a newspaper of record in Brazil. Among daily newspapers, Folha has also the news website with the largest number of visitors. History Folha was founded on 19 February 1921, by a group of journalists led by Olival Costa and Pedro Cunha, under the name Folha da Noite. It was an evening newspaper, with a project that privileged shorter, clearer articles, focusing more on news than on opinion, and a positioning closer to the themes that affected the daily life of the paulistanos (São Paulo city dwellers), particularly the working classes. The paper was competing against O Estado de S. Paulo the leading newspaper in the city, which represented rural moneyed interests and took on a conservative, traditional and rigid posture; Folha was always more responsive to societal needs. Business flourished, and the controlling partners decided to buy a building to serve as headquarters, a printing press and then, in 1925, to create a second newspaper, Folha da Manhã. Also in 1925, Folha da Manhã premiered Juca Pato, a cartoon character drawn by Benedito Carneiro Bastos Barreto (1896-1947), better known as Belmonte. Juca Pato was supposed to represent the Average Joe, and served as a vehicle for ironic criticism of political and economic problems, always repeating the tagline "it could have been worse". The two Folha newspapers criticized mainly the Republican parties that monopolized power