This article is a tribute and expression of gratitude to our readers. A very diverse and qualified jury, convened by the Generalitat, has awarded the National Communication Award in the press category to the director of ARA. But this is an award for all of us who make the newspaper AND especially for our readers, who are our reason for being. Free citizens, interested in the world around them, involved in their society and their time, and who consider it worthwhile to support a media outlet in stormy times and pay for the information we publish.
If this award has meaning, it is not as recognition for a voice but for a way of doing things shared by a large number of people. A very simple, yet demanding, idea of journalism.
Our duty is to discover and publish the truth, without fear or favoritism. That is all. It is not a rhetorical declaration. It is a daily practice, made up of small decisions, constant doubts, and discipline. Also humility, aware that the goal is probably never fully achieved, but it must be pursued with determination.
Our job is to put every statement to the test. Verify, contrast, review. It is accepting that, sometimes, the facts do not confirm what we expected, and that we must publish even so.
And this also implies understanding what journalism is not. We do not give sermons. We do not engage in propaganda. We do not practice activism. We are not the opposition of some or others. We are an independent organization dedicated to informing. This obliges us. Because it requires us to explain the facts as they are, even when they are uncomfortable, even when they go against the majority wave. Very often our work is not spectacular. It is slow, demanding, and thankless. But it is here that the credibility of this newsroom is built.
Good journalism is maintained above all by good journalists. But not only by good journalists. It needs a ripple effect structure in decisions. It needs journalists and editors who protect standards when it is easier to relax them. A newspaper is, in essence, a system of decisions. It needs internal governance. And in difficult times, what makes the difference is not what we say, but how we decide and act. All of us, including the majority shareholder, Ferran Rodés, the board of directors, and the editorial board chaired by Josep Ramoneda.
In a newspaper, facts, by themselves, are not always enough. We must explain what happened, but also why it matters. We must help to understand, without simplifying, without forcing conclusions that the facts do not support. This is the balance that defines the work of journalists around the world: rigor in method and clarity in interpretation.
Today the context is complex. Technological platforms have profoundly transformed the way information circulates. They decide what people see, in what order, and with what intensity. They have assumed editorial functions without assuming editorial responsibilities.
At the same time, they have weakened the economic model that traditionally supported journalism. They have captured a large part of advertising revenue. And, more importantly, they have fragmented – perhaps destroyed – the shared space of facts on which the indispensable consensus space of democratic societies is based. Today, verifiable truth competes on equal terms with rumor, distortion, and manipulation.
Faced with this, the temptation may be to adapt. To be lighter, more forceful, more emotional. But it would be a mistake. The value of journalism is to offer criteria, responsibility, and rigor to readers willing to pay to be informed.
This forces us to be more demanding, not less. To reinforce processes, not to relax them. To ensure, even in a fragmented environment, that information remains reliable.
We are passionate about this work. Even though we live in times when truth is questioned, when the press is discredited, and when language is distorted. In these times, the most important thing is to do what we know how to do: verify, explain, and provide keys to try to understand.
Thanks to the journalists and the ownership of ARA who continue to do this work with rigor, with the conviction – perhaps not very spectacular, but essential – that truth and honesty in the exercise of the profession matter. Thanks, above all, to our subscribers and readers, who give us the opportunity to do serious, free journalism dedicated especially to what we believe matters to citizens. Basically, to explain society through reality but with the long and utopian vision of building a cultured, awakened, and happy society.
