Recent
While the mainstream media are torn between 2.0 communication and adherence to the paper, while posh journalists debate whether its future will be digital, printed or not, while the gurus put dates to final demise of newspapers as we know it today ... while all this happens even small patches where journalism is still a craft made with care, where journalists are still kicking the street and trying to sources face to face, where the work is still done for the sake of art, vocation, because.
are many English municipalities that are published in small publications barely survive and get ahead with the effort of a few journalists or not, apprentices in any case. No official records or data; not know how many or few copies published, not just organized, there is no specific association of local information Press - Not make the news beyond their scope, but there are, out on the streets every week, every fortnight, every month, when you can, fulfilling a social work never sufficiently recognized.
And let me put my eyes in a particular case, a small publication that has the 2010 95 years of life, there is nothing, you see the light in the town of Isla Cristina Huelva, is the oldest of Huelva and third of Andalusia, which has survived war, infinite crisis, the monarchy, the republic and dictatorship, a democratic councils of all colors ... and that is, staying afloat by advertising and the sale of copies, moving forward with difficulty, without subsidies, without help and without begging.
I am referring to "The Higuerita " a miracle of journalism has a biweekly, which is -1.50 euros payment and has a circulation of 1,300 copies and a hearing 9,000 readers for a population of 20,000. Furthermore, there is only sold at newsstands and bookstores in the town, but, via subscription, it reaches all corners of Spain and a few others from beyond our borders. And is that not only is a means of communication, but such publications are also the umbilical cord that keeps many away to their hometowns. And if at some point does not come with the paper, also has a digital edition - www.periodicolahiguerita.com - which, in little more than a year old, is around 200,000 visitors. And, the tradition and new technologies need not be at odds. What
how something is accomplished with which it is falling? Well thanks to the work of journalists but of training, vocation itself, thanks to people who devote their spare time writing, taking photographs, interviewing the most representative of their area, to talk to people, writing newsletters and chronic social life. To translate, ultimately, the small realities of everyday life, local journalism, hyperlocal if you ask me now that this term is so popular, a journalism of truth, the good, which expects nothing in return.
And although in recent years have been appearing in some municipalities of free local publications entity belonging to media groups, if South Publications in Andalusia Local Gazettes, in Madrid, or people throughout the country, " the way you work, the "standardization", its own structure, little or nothing to do with this local press type craft what we mean, independent and maintained, not as business-how much press has been born in the shelter of institutional advertising and subsidies, but rather as an institution.