Friday, March 29

Julián Quirós: ABC, almost 120 years


ABC should regularly explain to its readers how the accounts are going and what our immediate plans are. The previous occasion (10-18-2020: ‘ABC’s freedom’) served to introduce myself as director, but fifteen hectic months have passed and we are just at the beginning of the year prior to the celebration of the 120th anniversary of the title, which which comes to mean that we have just begun a stage of intense activity. This same week, following the invitation of the Nueva Economía Fórum at the Casino de Madrid, we were able to address in front of 500 face-to-face and telematic attendees how we see ourselves and how we see the situation of the media industry in Spain.

slightly revamped to improve its visual relevance and provide a more useful service. Although the most important changes have not come from the refinement of the design, but from the content. The newspaper has gained in reading depth, with the daily incorporation of great narrative pieces (stories, reports, profiles) and new talents in Opinion firms, to the point of having the largest and most outstanding offer of collaborations in the press Spanish. All the sections have gained in informative power, in news grip, and it is an effort that we intend to consolidate. The result of all this is that ABC returns to being, more than two decades later, the second best-selling printed newspaper in Spain and, above all, the first in its ideological spectrum. If ‘El País’ leads the space on the left, ABC does so prominently in the liberal-conservative sphere, in everything that we can consider ‘the non-left’. A recognition of loyalty to the founding postulates, but also to the inspiring example of Don Torcuato who, as Ignacio Camacho pointed out in the presentation of the act, devised “a trend newspaper, not a party newspaper.” Hence, the best guarantee that we can give our readers is, as we pointed out last Tuesday, «to be predictable in the principles, but not in the relationship with the powers; be less complacent with ourselves and outwards; gain autonomy with respect to the different forces that operate in public life, in whatever sphere, not only the political one».

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On January 1, ABC will be 120 years old. He was born, it is known, in a convulsive time and lived through even more turbulent and fruitful periods. Luca de Tena lit up the head right in the middle of a technological barrage, coinciding with the irruption and expansion of the plane and the automobile, and countless other innovations, from the tractor to the aerial weapons, the electrocardiogram, the zipper, the intravenous anesthesia or the stainless steel. In short, as revolutionary at the time as artificial intelligence, the metaverse or genetic modifications may seem to us today, with the consequent disturbances. For this reason, we want to reach the splendor of the newspaper with our homework done; not only with the fullness of the printed newspaper, but also with the best digital editions available, after the recent success of our new ‘app’ for mobile phones. We have a solid and cutting-edge website, for a reason it enjoys 40 million unique monthly users, 14 of them outside of Spain, but the technological options are immense and we want to unfold all its possibilities for our readers, which is why throughout this financial year we will focus on making a qualitative and exponential leap: new ‘home’, new online news presentation, ‘newsletters’, ‘podcasts’, visual pieces, explanatory journalism, verifiers, etc.

The media company in which ABC is integrated, Vocento, is the most solvent in the market; healthy, without debt, diversified, with purely Spanish capital, financial and shareholder independence, has recovered the economic margins prior to the pandemic, has the muscle to invest, projects underway and a dozen leading brands that have already resolved the transformation of their businesses traditional, fully viable. All of this is important. Because the challenge requires entrepreneurial strengths and intellectual determination. Contrary to what is usually spread, journalism is not in crisis, but undoubtedly the content distribution system is. The Internet has broken the news market, like so many others, in such a way that the media have lost their monopoly on intermediation; they continue to have an important weight, but not absolute control. The press, in an extensive sense, no longer decides everything that the public sees or knows because on many occasions it is known before the press reports. But it certainly retains two critical capabilities. First, there are still many issues relevant to public opinion that are not known, because it does not matter if they are known. And second, we have the power to prove whether what people already know is true or not, because much of what is disseminated as information is only propaganda on the part, covert propaganda, an interested version and without contrast. The latest manifest example was published on ABC on Friday, when we revealed that the Government is designing, with Bildu and PNV, a legal shortcut to release 50 ETA members with serious blood crimes. Without the role of the press, these issues would never be made public, but it also exposes a Pedro Sánchez who has leveraged the lie: only four months ago he flatly denied any understanding with Bildu. And in his day he went further, it is recorded: «If you want I will tell you five or twenty times, the question offends, with Bildu nothing is agreed». That way, then, we will continue; being faithful to our unwavering principles, but also fulfilling our obligation to inform thoroughly and everything. Today like (almost) 120 years ago.

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