Today we start the celebrations of the first 45 years of life of the paper edition of EL PERIÓDICO. And we do it with an exhibition that does not tell our story nor the story we have told in this time, but looks to the future. There is day because there is night. There is carnival, because there is Lent. There is a party because there is work. So to celebrate, we do what we apparently don’t do every day. In this exhibition we present some of the covers we would like to make in the next 45 years and that synthesize what we are and what we want to be. They are not an improvisation or a graphic design exercise. They are the result of the intellectual work that we do every day in the editorial office, thanks to our specialists who listen to the facts to explain them. And in this way we connect with readers, our reason for being. We dare to draw a possible future because we have been experts, for 45 years, in explaining the present.
We could have selected the best 45 covers in the history of the newspaper, collecting both the historical facts that we have told and the exclusive stories published by our journalists. We could have chosen the 45 protagonists that we have interviewed.
But this would not be EL PERIÓDICO. It would be long, cumbersome, conventional… To continue being EL PERIÓDICO we must change and innovate permanently, attentive to the demands of society, especially our readers, as the president of Prensa Ibérica says. This is what we have done, what we do and what we will continue to do.
But when you walk through the exhibition I ask you to pay attention to two things that are the essential components of EL PERIÓDICO.
The first is the form. You will see direct, forceful headlines, facts from the readers’ point of view and not of those who rule. This is one of the essences of EL PERIÓDICO: make the complicated simple so that it can be understood. Some, from our beginnings until today, have wanted to belittle us for this reason. They confused us with a popular newspaper, with a tabloid. But the reality has been that the so-called serious newspapers are today like EL PERIÓDICO has been in these 45 years. And those of the future will be as we are now in all our platforms: in the print edition, in the digital channels, in the networks, in Sergi’s podcast or in the Newletters of Olga Pereda, Gabriel Ubieto, Gemma Martínez, Carol Álvarez or of the director of the moment.
The first cover of EL PERIÓDICO, on October 26, 1978, It said in five columns: “Catalan schoolchildren will depend on Tarradellas.” “The State will transfer exclusive powers in education to the Generalitat” wrote our competitors, some who are no longer here and others who are still with us and whom we also congratulate on their recent 142nd anniversary. Josep Pla said, quite rightly, that It is more difficult to write short than to write long. You have to be much better informed and documented to be concise in a mobile alert than to ramble on in three heavy volumes. Therefore, behind each of these 45 covers is the intellectual work of the entire editorial team, full of specialists who understand reality with the aim of making it understandable. We are all laymen in what we are not specialists in. Therefore, we all need to understand what is happening, to empower ourselves and decide our future. They are covers that synthesize knowledge to be shared, what we do every day.
The second component of EL PERIÓDICO’s personality that I would like you to focus on in the exhibition is the themes of the covers that will see how they reflect our editorial purposes. I will not tire you again by explaining that we are the information platform focused on People, the Planet and Progress made from Barcelona and Catalonia. In this exhibition you will find the synthesis of the editorial product with which we celebrate these first 45 years, which you can now consult on our website and which at the end of October we will distribute in a paper supplement. We review the progress our society has made on 45 key issues to advance people without ruining the planet. And we spoke with 45 analysts who predict what may happen in these areas in the next 45 years. Understanding the past to improve the future, as our dynamic marketing department headed by Anna Domènech has aptly named it.
I especially want to thank those who have put this exhibition together: Rafa Julve, Iosu de la Torre, Joel Mercè, Ricard Gràcia, the editing team and the great Judith Pons together with the commercial team headed by Felipe de Lucas, Juan Pedro Armendariz and Mercedes Otálora.
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I finish: Then, now and always, we are the 3 P’s for understand more. We invite you to debate and build the future around these 45 covers. We invite readers, advertisers, brands and institutions that share these purposes to feel at home, this house that the editors of Prensa Ibérica protect and that we share with 26 other newspapers.
So, we invite you to celebrate our past, but above all we invite you to share the future with us. Don’t hesitate, we need you with us, as subscribers or advertisers. Thank you very much and for many years!