One of the primary tasks of a newspaper is to organize the chaos, to make the torrent of news, events, reports and opinions look like a house you want to live in instead of a construction site with materials scattered on a lot. EL PAÍS has been doing it since day one and even months before it hit the streets, with tests and zero numbers. This permanent construction work has a daily translation: that, although it changes throughout the day, it always offers a still photo at the start of each day, at six in the morning.
All decisions and all corresponding debates take place at five in the afternoon in the first meeting, which this Saturday was held for the first time with the public “It is a very executive meeting in which editors-in-chief and section heads sit at the same table with the management,” explained the director, at its beginning, marked as every afternoon by a bell that summons those responsible to a room on the second floor of the newspaper on Miguel Yuste Street in Madrid.
There, “each section presents the hottest topics and also has to explain the opening,” Martínez Ahrens detailed. “In the first part, the editors-in-chief sing the songs.” And in the second, what readers will see a few hours later is built. A meeting of these characteristics normally arrives with chaos already organized, or so it is attempted, and the function of this dialogue is to give it order, hierarchy and meaning. editor-in-chief of International, and editor-in-chief of Spain, are in charge of defending the bets of the toughest sections, which, especially on weekends, fuse in-depth chronicles, reports and interviews, and which daily have to deal with a constant flow of breaking news information.
This Saturday, at least for the moment, there has not been a frenetic succession of news. editor-in-chief of the website, reviews the day’s notable news and remembers that in the United States it is still early, so there is still room for Donald Trump, who has aggravated his schism with NATO and has once again threatened Cuba, to ruin the planned news script.
After the interventions of the deputy director of Catalonia, the editor-in-chief of Communities and Madrid, and the head of the Economy section, the meeting continues with a question from the director and moving from strictly current national issues such as the regularization of migrants or the campaign in Andalusia to the forecasts from America, where EL PAÍS has more than 80 journalists. The connections from Washington, from Buenos Aires, from Mexico City and from Bogotá show the enormous variety of points of view and the thematic kaleidoscope that each edition of the newspaper includes.
In this liturgy, which has been as real as every day, those responsible for the sections bring their satchel, show what it contains and leave. What happens next usually stays between assistant directors behind closed doors. “We sell our fish and leave,” noted the editor-in-chief of Society and Science. Behind him, who has defended one of the central bets of the newspaper this weekend, has continued the editor-in-chief of Culture, Sports, and El País Weekly, which has presented a special issue dedicated to the 50th anniversary. “The purpose was to tell how we have lived it and how we have told it,” he said.
The first part of the meeting ends with the forecasts of those responsible for audio, video; and social networks, And editor-in-chief of Photography, gives way to the second part showing the most outstanding images of the day. The thing is between a photo from a report that will be key, the portrait of the protagonist of an overwhelming story worthy of a genre film. survival, and a series of images from the EL PAÍS festival that is celebrated until this Sunday.
Latest decisions
Martínez Ahrens, flanked by deputy director, makes the final decisions with his team. deputy editor of the Sunday edition, makes her proposal for the cover; deputy director of the Spanish section, puts emphasis on the gestation of the bizarre survival story; deputy director of The Weekly Country and magazines, details the central themes of the special. Meanwhile, editor-in-chief of Confection, paints the first page of paper. They are accompanied by Noguer, deputy director of the printed edition, deputy director of America, and director of Five Days. The website’s deputy director, on maternity leave, also regularly participates in the meeting.
The cover is taking shape, both the one that readers will read this Sunday in print and the one they will see on the web starting at six. A mirror of hundreds of decisions made by a chain of command that ends at the newsstand or in the newspaper application. Because… who rules in THE COUNTRY? “You, the readers,” Martínez Ahrens recalled. Well, every corner of the newspaper is conceived with them in mind.
