Publish the news. Resist pressures

The

EL PAÍS

is an ethical contract with the readers, as well as with the society to which it is addressed.

In this case, with the societies - in the plural - to which it is addressed, since an important and growing part of the newspaper's users resides in the American continent.

It forms, together with the Statute of the Editorial Office and the Ombudsman, a system of guarantees that allows us to produce truthful, relevant and independent information, insofar as it is not conditioned by any external pressure.

Each new edition

it is at the same time an effort, a modest triumph and a reason for deontological satisfaction.

To this, the twenty-third, dozens of professionals have contributed intensively, numerous journalists from the EL PAÍS Newsroom who have sent their suggestions, tenaciously defended their proposals and, in general, discussed to the point of exhaustion with the team in charge of change, led as always in an extraordinary way by Álex Grijelmo.

The objective was simple: six years after the previous edition, it was essential for us to update numerous precepts in order, perhaps paradoxically, to reaffirm and adapt to our time the foundational commitments of the newspaper: modernization of society, defense of economic progress with social progress, as well as citizen rights and respect for minorities.

The

is also the best tool to alleviate the fallibility of journalists, which is that of the human being in general.

A newspaper is, in essence, what it publishes - and also what it does not publish - and it is remarkable that the pressures that inevitably arise are just as frequent and pernicious in one sense as in the other.

Publishing all the news, resisting all pressures, is thus, more than a slogan, a moral compass that, together with the rigor, professionalism, honesty and independence of journalists - independence also from their own opinions and prejudices - allows us to build a good newspaper, to contribute by extension to freedom of information and thought, as well as to control the power and the powerful, all tasks that cement advanced democratic societies.

Despite the change of times, these instruments of good trade have not fundamentally changed.

Ever since an editor in New York in August 1896 promised to the readers of the newspaper that he had just bought “to offer the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of any party, sect or interests involved”, this motto has become in the engine, declared or not, one of the best.

The future will have to be built on these foundations, the next decades in which EL PAÍS can produce vibrant journalism that essentially serves society, regardless of any pressure group.

This is my second performance as director of EL PAÍS.

In 2006, at the beginning of the first, I wrote, remembering the previous words, that every director needs to renew that contract with his readers.

Publish all the news, resist all the pressures.

This is an unbreakable commitment to its readers that the newspaper has been renewing throughout its life, since 1976, on those occasions when circumstances have required it.

I did it with the Editorial Office after my appointment in June 2020. And with this article, which celebrates the new edition of the

- in itself a fundamental and public commitment - I would like to do it with all EL PAÍS readers on both sides of the Atlantic .

The newspaper is independent: we are not going to be intimidated.

Readers can be sure that, despite the uncertainty of the times we live in - the challenges to democracy, the risks of economic, social and political instability, as well as the certainly tireless attempts at control by power, governments, parties politicians, companies, individuals, unions, corporations and groups of all kinds - in the solidity of that pact we will not fail them.