Ulises Espinosa Núñez joined the staff of 26 even before the newspaper was founded. He belongs to the select team of volunteer correspondents who pioneered print press in this province with more good intentions than real professional tools at their disposal.
He tells us about it now with his characteristic loud voice and elusive gaze, because he is rummaging in some very intimate spring for details that are already slipping away over time. He knows that they are vital for threading together memories.
"In the beginning, the newspaper was called Veintiséis, in letters, and it had intermittent circulation because there was no fixed date for the publications; now one thinks about it and it seems crazy. It circulated today, for example, and would do so again in a week or three months, without an exact day. That's how it all started.
"A group of us were called to write and we joined from the volunteer movement because we were working on related things, but without any knowledge of journalism, inverted pyramid writing, and things like that.
"I can assure you that we were unconditional from the beginning, and what is always said that 26 is a huge school is a great truth from the first years.
"Humble people, with a great leader at the time, who was Rosano Zamora Paadín (Gallo), a pioneer of the revolutionary press here and a man with immense training. Those of us who are left over from those times still feel very proud of our work and happy to see each other, to exchange as a family."
Ulises regrets that there are no regular spaces for exchange between generations and says that much more account can be taken of those who opened the path of journalism in the Balcón de Oriente, learning the journalistic technique at the University (because they went to the classrooms to become graduates) while combining it with the harvest tours, the coverage of frequent visits by national leaders and the ardor of a province that was gradually being born from its people.
"They are, right now, a collective with a battery of professionals who are carrying out in-depth investigative journalism on what is happening in the province; and I think it is valuable to highlight the female courage to write because it is mostly girls who take on important texts and do it with passion."
"Of course, the training with which they come from the Academy is far superior to ours. They have a solid cultural background and that makes them owners of a very high professional level."
"With such a committed team, anything is possible. And, as the years go by, you feel a lot of pride and that you are part of the achievements of the 26 Newspaper."
