If a genie suddenly appeared to me and said: ‘Make a wish’, perhaps the answer would be easier than summarizing the meaning of 26 for me. The Newspaper is inevitably linked to the intricacies of a misunderstood, poorly paid, and insatiable profession, which only those who - as the book Journalism from the Inside puts it - have the guts to feel ‘the fire that marks the path and answers, as it goes along, incessant questions and concerns... the fire of vocation’ truly understand.
That flame is alive when you look in the mirror and barely notice the dark circles under your eyes, when you swap your bed for your keyboard; when you go about like Sherlock Holmes, trying to discover the warm water and even behind the doors that might appear; when the midday sun cannot melt your desire to tell something so that someone, perhaps on a pavement or while waiting in line, opens a page and starts to read.
"To be a journalist you have to be invisible..., to have the faith of a fisherman - and his patience - and the asceticism of someone who forgets himself - his thirst, his hunger, his worries - to put himself at the service of someone else's story," as the Argentinian Leila Guerriero would say.
That is why, if we were to compile an album summarizing the 46 years we are celebrating today, we would face an enormous task. Our newspaper is much more than just a number of some staff. And we are not just talking about reporters because this is a team effort.
We should mention Mastrapa (we miss you every day) with his childlike soul, Peñita with his unforgettable madness, Ramón and his sweet scoldings, Freddy and his righteousness in his job, Chela and her courageous ink, Alexis and his keen journalistic sense of smell; the accurate correction of Góngora, Marlene or Marilú... So many... So many... We should mention so many. To so many... We should also mention the families, who usually accompany the processes and even end up reading or editing, like colleagues in training.
Indeed, we are no longer in the times of colossal routines with typewriters, linotypes, and analog cameras, of those brave people who signed the first editions, even without all the necessary preparation, but with the infinite will to inform the people. Now, sleepless nights are spent on social networks, minute-by-minute, multimedia, and service provision.
So opinions such as that of Dayana Menzoney Justiz are unsurprising: ‘Since I was a journalism student, it was clear to me that this was the medium where I wanted to work. I was caught by the value of the collective, its solidarity’. Today, two and a half years after graduating, she has been able to confirm her decision. And although she works with radio and television in the province, nothing replaces the spell of the written press.
"I feel the need to stay here. We work together and I like that. It's not just me doing journalism, it's a group of passionate people working on a subject. I have grown professionally. The newspaper, as a multi-media organization, provides us with many tools that can even be used in other press organizations,’ confesses the winner, together with Yuset Puig Pupo, of two prizes in the recent 26 de Julio National Journalism Contest. Through their reporting, they tackled complex topics such as adolescent marriage and femicide, as analyzing diverse and difficult issues has been another of the paths of this media outlet.
We are also the result of that luminous birth, on 15 March 2000, which represented the birth of 26 Digital, the first website in the eastern provinces. Graciela Guerrero (Chela, sadly deceased), Reynaldo López (today one of our photographers), and the engineer Remisel Naranjo took on the challenge entrusted to them by Ramiro Segura, our director for more than three decades. "With this fact, the collective's mentality was transformed, we gained cyber-readers, and we won international prizes. And we grew," said Chela.
In addition to the traditional text and photo binomial, we embraced hyperlinks, hypertexts, audio, and videos..., we produced multimedia reports, and we dreamed big. But we are not satisfied, we never do. That is why, since 2017, we have changed our routines again, assuming ourselves as a digital newspaper with a print edition, getting closer to the people, consolidating our research and our presence in social networks, creating projects with a community vision, training ourselves...
It has not been easy. The experiment promoted by the Cuban public press, of which we are a part, has involved many objective and subjective changes. Today our payroll has grown, and we move in the business scenario, amid legal renovations, provision of services, and other guidelines that, without neglecting journalistic work, lead us along paths of greater autonomy and profitability.
This is how our director, Elena Diego Parra, put it: "We have been on this path of transformation for seven years now. We started with the new management model, which sought greater proximity to the public and gave importance to social networks. Because of the results of our work, we inserted ourselves into ‘the experiment’. And today, as part of this, we are promoting an innovation project with four fundamental aspects: editorial, technological, economic, and social."
"From the point of view of the first one, we consolidated ourselves as a press multimedia, with the design of quality publications in all our platforms. Second, we are launching a new content management system, which implies the redesign of the website and its internal dynamics; at the same time, it will allow us to commercialize -through our site- communicative products. In this sense, we already have the cultural supplement Matarile, with excellent billing, and we are in the process of registering it."
"The economic aspect cuts across all these processes, aimed at generating income that will allow us to be self-sustainable. This is why the structure of the collective has been changed, we have added an administrative team... On the social side, the new headquarters at 26 (49 Vicente García Street) plays an important role, as we want to get much closer to the public, get involved in community work, and become a cultural center, a space for socializing. We want to put more of a face on the newspaper."
The fact that we have been providing communication-related services for six months now corroborates our efforts. Who would have thought decades ago that our medium would sign contracts with clients (state and private), offer design, specialized coverage, advertising podcasts, and other services? And even less, that our pages would receive advertising, something new for the history of the revolutionary press in LasTunas.
Yes, dear readers, even bulletins for events such as the Book Fair and the Cucalambeana Fiesta. Of course, we try not to lose our compass, which is why ethics have never left us, nor has the desire to respond to the interests of the people, our target audience.
Raúl Carrasco Ávila, head of the Human Resources group, who has been with this group for nine months, has been able to appreciate this: "You can see the unity, professionalism, and dedication of the collective. From the administrative area, we support the journalistic staff, who do a meritorious job, despite not always having the necessary resources. I am glad to be part of it."
We have certainly made progress, but we know that the road is still long. Just as the times of COVID-19 put our professional skills to the test, today the challenges are different and force us to evolve.
Faced with the seemingly endless hours of blackout that could appear (and have appeared) on a Thursday, at the close of an edition, the infinite dedication of a team of proofreaders, designers, journalists, and administrative staff is required; waiting to send the newspaper to the polygraph in Holguín, and then return to the newsstands on Friday. Faced with the complexity of an era that involves new dynamics, languages, and audiences, the desire to communicate well and for the good of all is imposed.
We are not perfect, but we try to be better. And if at any moment someone falters, even a little, there will always be someone who will say: "Let's get into Carlitos Mode," in allusion to our commercial, Romero, who -not at all parsimonious- likes things "for yesterday."
Beyond any jokes, we understand the responsibility that implies replicating ourselves in more than 20 thousand copies printed every week, having a leading website in the province, having 24 thousand followers in our Facebook profile, and other figures that illustrate that even the people from Las Tunas -and Internet users from different countries- prefer to share their reading with us.
But behind all this, never forget, there is still the untiring work, the sacrifice, and that phrase we keep repeating: "The strength of 26 is in its people." This is how it has been since 1978 when the newspaper first appeared in tabloid format and 14 years later was converted from a daily to a weekly; and then, in less than a decade, back to a daily newspaper, in its digital version. We are the result of our dreams and challenges, #SomosUnEquipo (We are a team).