The strength of 26 lies in its people. This is a conviction that accompanies those of us who make up the newspaper today and an idea that is reiterated when we talk to our founders and many others who have been part of this team at different times. Because those who have experienced from the inside the ardor with which each day passes cannot see it differently. That is who we are.
Surely those who allow themselves to be carried away by the apparent calm of our routines and the broad smile that accompanies the collective silences when we talk about life in other newsrooms do not appreciate it in the same way. If only the most critical readers could be there at the zero minutes of publishing an urgent article on the web, or in the hectic hours of closing time or the days extended until the early hours of the morning by a blackout, and elucidate the fear in their eyes before a typo that, after passing victoriously after three or four consecutive readings, is discovered at the very last moment, almost carelessly.
Perhaps they would understand better the exciting twists and turns of the news if they accompanied our searches in the sunshine, on any given day, knocking on doors that do not always open diligently; or looking for allies, accomplices, to tell a story as complete as possible, with its nuances and mistakes. Only in this way, when the intensity of the collective work overcomes us, is it easier to understand.
Those of us who are 26 sleep little; rummage through social media looking for reasons, events, and contexts...; we like to lie down on the sofa in the boss's office with absolute abandon to talk openly about everything possible, and share what hurts our souls and also the reasons that make us happiest.
In these improvised breaks, we notice that we have changed. The most knowledgeable believe it is the result of the stability of their people, who are not very prone to migrations (except for those allowed by the recipes for moonlighting). We, who assume that nobody leaves their own family completely, laugh at how much the children of those who arrived at the Editorial Office recently graduated have grown up; or we joke about the days when Peñita sweated buckets to develop the rolls of photos that Chimeno and Rey now download onto any PC, as if by magic.
Those of us who are here often remember "Ramón's things", Robertina's coffee, and Mandy's innovative efforts, so decisive; we wonder what Ramiro Segura would have said when faced with one of those jobs that put us up against the wall, and we miss, as much as it is impossible to explain, Leonardo Mastrapa's broad smile, his wise reprimand or his childish witticism. To mention just a few of those who allow us to celebrate our 45th birthday knowing that we are more than the current staff.
A TRIP TO VIRTUALITY
Graciela Guerrero Garay is one of the people who have marked these memories. Having been the founder of our website, she confesses, has become one of the great pride of her career. "We started 26 on the Internet, although this was a terrain barely explored by the Cuban press. Ramiro, the driving force behind the idea, gave me the task, as I had some knowledge of computers.
"We were daring. Our technology was reduced to a laptop. But, as we had no IT specialist or webmaster, I kept looking for someone who could support my dream. At the Technology Management and Information Center (CIGET in Spanish) in Las Tunas, there was a node and there was the engineer Remisel Naranjo, the only one who knew about HTML codes, and he helped us. I also met Reynaldo López Peña, who worked at the José (Pepito) Tey Pedagogical Institute, who was vital in the process and who today rewards us with his photographic work.
"They were intense sessions, we would get up in the early hours of the morning to carry out the assignment in any of our homes, wherever there was electricity because it was a time of blackouts. Little by little, we put together the architecture of the website and managed to get 26 Digital up and running on March 15, 2000.
"With this event, the mentality of the collective was transformed, because until then it had been married to typewriters and old methodologies. And we grew up. It was nice to see us gain cyber-readers, win international prizes, and achieve other amazing results," recalls Graciela.
Maryla García Santos sums up how we made our way through the twists and turns of new technologies. "Digital publishing took on the different forms of language in the virtual universe. In addition to text and photos, hyperlinks and hypertexts began to be used, then audio and video were incorporated, and we ventured into hypermedia reporting...
"We have grown in interaction on social networks and defended the profiles of 26 in all possible social media platforms. This has led us to add followers, to stand out for our visually, and to have a leading website in the province and beyond. Such a journey has been the result of the quality of the medium, including the English version, maintained against all odds".
RENEWED TRAILS
With COVID-19, we tanned our souls. It was time to make the migration to the digital environment more solid. And, from there, we kept an eye on the news, doing the maths to contrast the official sources with the queues and not "go with the rag", we scrutinized stories that marked us for life and we said: "No one is alone here; if someone feels that something is beyond them, let them say so without fear. We are going to be able to do it.
In 26, the team reaches the house; therefore, it is not strange that Ariel, Isabel, Bolívar, Yusdel, Juan, and other names know oxygen from our spaces. It would be impossible to walk without a rearguard because it is necessary to love a lot and understand well to coexist with those who make up this brotherhood, confessed addicts (to coffee, series, or a football team), with an enormous number of hours a day sitting in front of the computer and extremely non-conformist, to the point of finding the fifth paw of every cat that passes in front of us.
That is why because we are nonconformists we have gone further. To anyone who doubts it, we talk about the experiment of editorial, technological and economic transformation of the Cuban public press, of which we are a part. And, although we are usually very given to modesty, we assure you that there is more than one of us who lose our composure to shout to the wind that we are among the 15 press media in Cuba (only two in the east) that are taking these first steps.
Elena Diego Parra, our director, who is proud of what we are, knows this well. "The National Award for Journalistic Innovation 2022 (awarded to the most innovative media in the country), which we won 26 along with four others, was a kind of crowning of the efforts - driven since 2017 - to transform our production routines, to make journalism closer to the people, to promote research, immediacy in digital platforms, the exchange with readers... And we have managed to do so in the face of difficulties".
Aware of the audacity of her troop and the challenges still to come, she assures that the experiment has come to represent a great opportunity. "We have made legal changes, we are going to expand our staff and offer services that will bring us closer to institutions, companies, and the people in general. We will be open, dialogic, but - above all - we will transform journalism, bringing it closer to what people need. Profitability, innovative processes, and research will accompany all of this, which will also translate into income for the collective. We want to shine and make people from Las Tunas proud of us.
We aspire to more: to continue working on the cultural supplement Matarile, to strengthen our presence on YouTube, to refresh the design of the printed newspaper, and to polish the language and the proximity with the public...
Of course, we count on you, the reader, who has been the reason for our work since the beginning, when 26 was a daily newspaper based in the historic center of this city. Today, without complacency, we know that we have grown, changed, and learned..., but that we still have a long way to go to feel satisfied.
That is why, if you want to know what we do, you have to dig into the archives and dust off those stories that emanated from typing on a typewriter or computer. Because this newspaper does not stop, it reinvents itself. Today, its children, with mobile phones in hand and digital recorders in the folder, bring to life journalistic reports that we share on Facebook, YouTube, Telegram, Twitter, and other platforms, in addition to the printed publication. We are simply a team of 45 years, who make ink and truth our raison d'être.