Around 1976, EL PAÍS announced in its launch that it was going to a country that wanted to shake off 40 years of dictatorship. Half a century later, it continues trying to tell in a different way what the eyes and ears of its editors see and hear. This Tuesday two of them, journalists Sonia Vizoso and Xosé Hermida, spoke in Vigo with a group of subscribers within the framework of the events that the newspaper celebrates for . And the readers have taken the floor: “How many columnists are from the right and how many from the left? Are there pacts of silence, like the one with the Crown and the King Emeritus, that we will find out about in the future? Are the extreme speeches in Congress intentional? Is it possible that The Weekly Country publish an interview with Santiago Abascal? What is the future of the press? “… Journalists, usually trained to ask questions, tried not to let any answers escape.
Xosé Hermida opened the debate with “The spirit of the newspaper is the same, a newspaper that was born with democracy, with a social commitment, open to culture, intellectuality, and also to what we call, sometimes a little petulantly, quality journalism.” He recalled that the example for EL PAÍS was the Anglo-Saxon press, with its quality standards and its tools to separate ownership – with a business, industrial vocation – from an editorial team that must always be independent, or at least try to be. “I think that all that social function that the newspaper tried to fulfill from the first moment is maintained. Now, the newspaper today has nothing to do with what it was. Neither this newspaper nor any other. I always said that I had become a journalist because I did not like to get up early. In the morning we looked for the information and in the afternoon, calmly, we prepared it and left very late. That’s why we had a reputation for people who stay up late and have a bad life. They come in at six in the morning. Currently the paper newspaper is a part, not even the main one. The web is much more than written journalism, it is an audiovisual platform with full dedication. It has become a journalism focused on the instantaneous.
That, Hermida pointed out, has dangers: “Journalism has always been a profession that is very exposed to errors, because it is done on the fly and quickly. The good journalist tries to minimize them, contrasting the information, speaking with as many sources as possible. At EL PAÍS I was taught that in honest, quality journalism, when you make a mistake, you recognize it. Now, with this frenetic race, everything is more complicated. There is a demand for immediacy that makes exposure to errors older, we walk more along the edge.” Sonia Vizoso also highlighted the importance of slower work, which tries to find the news while telling it “in the most complete way possible, making small stories big.”
The current policy
The talk turned to what is happening in Spanish politics, especially the level of debates in Congress, reflected in Hermida’s chronicles. “I tend to think that politicians undervalue citizens. The language has been infected from social networks in a brutal way. If that is effective, I don’t know.” On the other side of the coin, Vizoso pointed out that “the politics of the tweet” does not favor politicians who try to load their speech with content, who work to convey a deeper message that moves away from disqualification.
In the talk there was time to reflect on new forms of information consumption, where the speed of reading and algorithms mediate the presentation of content. “The phenomenon of networks is allowing the creation of ghettos, of algorithms that confirm your criteria and you can’t stand it if nothing contradicts you,” said Hermida. “There are more and more people to whom it happens.”
Another question from readers was whether there is ideological bias in the newspaper’s opinion members. And the editors defended that EL PAÍS defends plurality even though it has its own editorial line, and that it is common to read articles that contradict that line.
What is also common is for a newspaper—and its journalists—to receive pressure and feel limited by the working framework. “Of course there are limitations,” Hermida acknowledged. “Newspapers have businessmen, shareholders, credits, debts… at EL PAÍS I have worked with a fairly reasonable margin of freedom. To my knowledge, the newspaper has never knowingly published false news. I think EL PAÍS has had ups and downs, but seen in its history, I think it is the newspaper that has left more room for journalists, with its defects and limitations.”
Vizoso pointed out the internal functioning of the newsrooms and the importance that this has in building a quality product: “An important point is knowing how an editorial works internally. The fact of having an Editorial Committee, a Style Book, decent working conditions protect the editor. In that aspect EL PAÍS is in the topand little is said about it. Furthermore, these tools are evolving. “We have incorporated the figure of the gender correspondent… there is an evolution.”
In the final stretch of the talk, one of the last questions raised was related to the future of journalism as a sustainable business that balances the defense of the right to information with the viability of the journalistic company. Sonia Vizoso explained it with a very graphic example: “Our profession continues to look for the way to be able to practice and make it a sustainable business. We have gone through all the stages. We have given away the tomatoes [en referencia a la gratuidad del producto en la web]; we have invited customers to come into the store and pay; We have explained that we need to charge. I don’t dare make a prediction. What is clear is that without the trust of readers, this would not be possible.”
