Waiting on a sunny day

Barcelona, Spain
Photo by CFPereda

Pensando en Madrid

Palacio de Cristal, Parque del Retiro, Madrid
Photo by CFPereda

Palabras como gatillos

“Las palabras son como gatillos que ayudan a las personas a negociar significados a través de la lente de creencias y visiones culturales.”
Erving Goffman, Antropólogo

Palabras como gatillos. He estado pensando en esta frase desde que la leí y me di cuenta de que me gusta tanto la frase porque es verdad que tenemos que utilizar las palabras como si fueran gatillos, pero en el buen sentido. Palabras como gatillos no para enmarcar una historia ni condicionarla dándole un sentido que en realidad no tiene. Palabras como gatillos que abren los ojos.

Sé que hay razones culturales por las que siento que los medios de comunicación protegen mucho al público en Estados Unidos. Siento que los medios esconden fotografías e imágenes para no herir la sensiblidad del público. Y no hay mejor manera de alejar a la audiencia de la realidad.

Me sorprendió, por ejemplo, cuánta gente no había visto aquí imágenes de las torturas en la carcel de Abu Ghraib en Irak y tuvieron que esperar a ver la versión de Botero. Me sorprendió lo infrecuente que es ver imágenes violentas o incluso sangre en las noticias, cuando las películas aquí tienen más contenido violento que en ninguna otra parte. Por eso no entiendo la idea de “proteger” al público mientras hay fuentes de violencia al alcance de cualquiera.

Creo que esta es parte de las razones por las que Estados Unidos parece tan lejos del resto del mundo, mientras el resto del mundo mira hacia Estados Unidos. Y es parte también de por qué la gente aquí no mira a los demás, por qué todo el mundo está centrado en uno mismo y lejos de los demás. Como si nada más importase.

Bueno, una cosa sí, el sentido de libertad que mantiene a este país unido. Aquí todo el mundo, sin importar de dónde vengan, cuanto tiempo lleven aquí, o las condiciones en las que viven, valoran su libertad como si no hubiera otro lugar en el mundo donde puedas ser libre y, a través de ese ideal, todas las mentes americanas parecen permanecer conectadas. Pero no veo esa conexión entre la gente, no veo que sean capaces de ver los problemas de los demás.

A veces me siento triste porque en mi país no existe ese ideal común. Nuestras mentes no están conectadas así, incluso decir que te sientes “español” todavía tiene malas connotaciones para algunos. Pero siento que una mayoría es capaz de ver al resto de la gente, no hay necesidad de proteger al público de nada, porque la realidad es eso, real. Y la podemos ver. Y no hay oportunidad mejor que dejar al público que vea las cosas como son, lo que no significa que se nos dé bien solucionar los problemas, porque esa es una historia aparte. ..

El año pasado leí una historia en el periódico sobre un hombre que murió en el metro de Nueva York y su cadáver estuvo viajando en el tren durante más de ocho horas hasta que alguien se dio cuenta de que estaba muerto.

No me puedo apostar nada a que esto no pasaría en otro país, pero si creo que aquí hay muchas más posibilidades de que pase. Porque aquí todo está más lejos, porque nadie mira a nadie, porque existe ese “espacio personal” donde no puede entrar nadie, y mucho menos los problemas de otro.

Igual que el día que me di cuenta de esto, mis sueños se chocaron con la realidad, con mis frustraciones, durante la discusión con el Prof. Nisbet sobre cómo se enmarcan y contextualizar las noticias sobre pobreza.

El sueño de que simplemente escribir historias sobre pobreza, no sobre gente pobre, nos hará a todos más conscientes de lo grande que es el problema. Pero la realidad es que se necesita mucho más que palabras para conseguir esto.

Siempre he pensado que cambios pequeños pueden llevar a uno grande. Puede que sea una utopía. Puede que sea una forma de decirme a mí misma que sí puedo cambiar algunas cosas que no me gustan: algo tan sencillo y complejo al mismo tiempo como el hecho de que alguna gente tiene muchas cosas mientras sus vecinos no tienen nada.

Mientras escribo, siento que voy puerta por puerta, dejando una historia que leer y quizás la semilla en la mente de otra persona para empezar el cambio. Me gusta simplificar las cosas, sí, hay alguna otra manera de conseguirlo?

 Words like triggers

“Words are like triggers that help individuals negotiate meaning through the lens of existing cultural beliefs and worldviews.”
Erving Goffman, Anthropologist

Words like triggers. I’ve been thinking about this since I read Prof. Nisbet paper and realized that I like the sentence so much because we do have to use words like triggers, but in the good sense of it. Words like triggers not to frame a story and lead to a meaning that is not the core issue we should be talking about. But words like triggers of reality. Words like triggers that open your eyes.

I know that there are cultural reasons for this but I feel that media protect the public too much here. I feel that media hide photographs and facts to not hurt the audience’s sensitiveness. And there’s no better way to take your audience away from reality.

I was surprised how many people hare hadn’t seen at all the images from Abu Ghraib in Iraq and had to wait for Botero’s version of it. I was surprised how uncommon it is to see blood or harsh images on the news, while movies here carry more violence than anywhere else. I don’t see the point of that idea of “protecting” the public, when they have sources of violence anywhere else.

I think this is part of the reason why the United States feel so far away from everywhere else, while everywhere else people are looking towards the United States. And it’s part of the reason why people don’t look at each other, why everyone is focused on themselves, on getting ahead. And it feels like nothing else matters.

Well, maybe one thing, the principle of Freedom that keeps this country together. Everyone here, no matter where they come from, how long they have been here or their life conditions, value their freedom as if there were no other place where you can be free and, because of that ideal, all the American minds seem to be tied in some way. But I don’t see that connection between people and, without people being able to see each other, there’s no way they are going to see other people’s problems.

Sometimes I feel sad because in my country we don’t have that common ideal. Our minds are not connected. Even saying that you feel “español” still has a bad connotation since the dictatorship. But I feel that a majority is able to see the rest of the people, there’s no need to protect the public from anything because the reality is that, is Real, and there’s a better chance than here that people will see what the real problems are (which doesn’t mean that we are great solving them, that’s another story).
Last year I read a story on the newspaper, a correspondent in New York was telling how a man had died in the subway train and his corpse remained in the seat for more than 8 hours before anyone noticed he wasn’t alive.

I cannot bet that wouldn’t happen outside of this country, but I think there are more chances here. Just because is further away, because they don’t look at each other, because there’s a personal space where no one can enter, and even less someone else’s problems.

And just like the day I realized about this, my dreams crashed with my frustrations, with reality, during the discussion with Prof. Nisbet about framing of news on poverty.

The dream that just by writing about stories of poverty, not about poor people, will make all of us conscious of how big the problem is. But the reality is that it takes much more than words to achieve that.

I’ve always believed that small changes can lead to a big one. It might be a utopia. It might be a way of telling myself I can actually change the things that I don’t like: something as simple and complex at the same time as the fact that some people
have a lot while their neighbour might have nothing.

When writing, I feel like going doorstep by doorstep, leaving a story to read and maybe the seed in someone else’s mind to start making a change. I like simplifying things, but is there any other way?

For a wooden frame

Fountains in Barcelona, Spain.
A picture for a wooden frame.
Photo by CFPereda. 

¿Identidad cultural?

Este el primero de varios comentarios sobre mi aprendizaje sobre como informar sobre otras culturas. Seguirá durante los próximos meses, también lo podéis encontrar en la página “Ethnicity & Reporting.”

“La cultura es como el agua al pez. Un pez no sabe que existe el agua hasta que salta fuera de ella.”
Kalervo Oberg

La plaza de Jemma l-Fna en Marrakesh, Marruecos. Un mercado por la mañana que se convierte, en el momento en que se pone el sol, en una reunión de actores callejeros, cuentacuentos y encantadores de serpientes. Es lo más cerca que podrías estar de la Edad Media en el siglo XXI. Lo más cerca que puedes estar de algunas de las tradiciones más arraigadas de países musulmanes.

Nunca me había visto a mí misma como diferente de cualquier otro ser humano. Mi fascinación por otras culturas, lenguas y tradiciones había comenzado muchos años antes de ir a Marruecos, pero siempre lo había entendido como una variación de lo mismo: el ser humano, aquello en lo que creemos, cómo interpretamos la vida y como vivimos la nuestra.

Photo by CFPereda
Marrakesh, Istanbul and Harlem, NY.

Estaba de pie en el medio de uno de los lugares más impresionantes que he visto y, de repente, me di cuenta de que parte de la impresión de estar en aquella plaza era porque no pertenecía a ese lugar. Igual que no pertenecía hace dos años después a Estambul, cuando se puso el sol en la última noche de Ramadán y no pude disfrutar igual que todos los que estaban aguardando en los parques para comenzar la cena. Igual que no pertenecía este domingo a las calles de Harlem.

Estuve pensando en este comentario durante el fin de semana en Nueva York y me di cuenta de que estas tres situaciones tienen una cosa en común: es muy difícil comprender por qué algunas personas se autodefinen como diferentes cuando pertenecen a un grupo en concreto, una nacionalidad o una comunidad, hasta que no te ves a ti misma en una situación así y ves que hay diferencias entre los demás y tú.

Del mismo modo que los peces no saben que existe el agua, el concepto de identidad cultural o de raza era completamente desconocido para mi antes de viajar a otros países. Hasta hace unos ocho años, no había inmigración en España, de modo que la idea de identidad cultural o de raza tampoco existía. No había “otros” con los que compararse, y por lo tanto, tampoco “otros” que nos ayudaran a definirnos.

Yo todavía estoy intentando definir mi concepto de identidad cultural. No sabía lo que esto significa para mí antes de venir a Estados Unidos, y ahora me encuentro aquí, en un país que es redefinido una y otra vez por las personas de todas las nacionalidades que conviven aquí. Todavía estoy intentando saber qué significa que yo esté incómoda en medio de la gente que corre a todas partes, siempre demasiado rápido para mí. Qué significan todos los horarios y planificaciones, vivir unos meses por delante y la sensación de que el presente se te acaba de escapar de las manos. Qué significa de verdad el concepto de espacio personal, de dónde viene.

Todavía estoy descubriendo todo esto mientras aprendo cosas de mí misma en un país diferente. Y, si hay algo que deba añadir a la lista de cosas que forman mi identidad cultural, tendría que empezar con la influencia de mi familia, donde estudie y la ciudad donde viví. Pero encontraría muy difícil separar, de entre todas estas cosas, las que dependen del ambiente que me rodea y las que significan que vengo de un país en concreto.

Quiero aprender esto, no ha pasado ni un sólo día que haya estado aquí y no haya pensado qué significa pertenecer a un sitio y, sobre todo, si eso añade más diferencias entre las personas que viven aquí y yo, más diferencias que el hecho de ser simplemente dos personas distintas.

Cuanto más compartimos, más comprendemos. Así me siento acerca de otras culturas y así me lancé a estudiarlas para contar mejor después cómo son. Era imposible que sintiera que pertenezco a Marrakesh, Estambul o Harlem porque hay demasiados elementos de esas culturas que desconozco, con los que no he crecido, pero que hacen que quiera conocerlos todavía más. Es entre otras culturas donde encuentro el deseo de aprender y contar después. Cuando aprendo cosas de otros lugares, siento que allí queda una parte de mí, pero más importante aún, que saqué a la luz algo que antes nadie había contado. Y hay demasiadas historias esperando a ser contadas.

Cultural Identity?

“Culture is like water to a fish. A fish does not know water exists until it jumps out of it.”
Kalervo Oberg

Jemaa l-Fna Square in Marrakech, Morocco. A market place in the morning that turns, as soon as the sun sets, into a gathering of street-actors, storytellers and snake-charmers. The closest you can get to the middle age in the 21st century. The closest you can get to some of the most deeply rooted traditions of Muslim countries.

I had never seen myself as different from any other human being. My fascination for different cultures, languages and traditions had started many years before going to Morocco, but I had always understood it as a variation of the same thing: how humans live, what we believe in, how we understand life, how we live our lives.

I was standing in the middle of one of the most shocking places I have seen and suddenly noticed that part of the shock was because I didn’t belong there. Like I didn’t belong a few years later to Istanbul, when the sun set on the last night of Ramadan and I couldn’t join people’s excitement waiting in the parks for dinner to start. Just like I didn’t belong to Harlem last Sunday morning.

I was thinking of this journal entry during this weekend in New York and realized how these three situations had one thing in common: it’s difficult to understand why some people define themselves as different because they belong to a certain cultural group, nationality or community until you see and feel that there’s a difference between you and the others.

Just like fish can’t see that water exists, the concept of race/cultural identity was completely unknown to me before I started travelling to different countries. Until about eight years ago, there was no immigration in Spain so the idea of cultural or race identity didn’t exist either. There were no “others” to be compared with and, therefore, no “others” to help you define yourself.

I still don’t think that the concept of race can be used as a basis for discrimination. But I don’t agree either with those who affirm we should get rid of it. I would only get rid of the part that serves as an excuse for many people to discriminate, but not the part that recognizes the richness and diversity of cultures among all of us.

I am still defining my concept of cultural identity. I was still figuring out what that means to me before coming to the United States, and now I find myself here, in a country that is redefined over and over by each and every community that lives here. I am still figuring out what it means to me when I am uncomfortable in the middle of people rushing in the streets, always walking too fast for me; what it means all the scheduling, living a few months from now and the sense that the present just flew away. What the concept of “personal space” truly means, where it comes from.

I am still discovering all this as I learn things about myself living in a different country. And, if there’s anything I put on the list of things that I would include as my cultural identity, I would have to start with my family’s influence, where I studied and the city where I lived. But I would find it hard to know how much of all those things are just environment influence or what being from Spain means.

I want to learn this, there hasn’t been a day I have spent in D.C. and not think of what being from one place means and, mostly, if that adds more differences if we compare anyone who lives here and me, rather than just being two different individuals.

The more we share, the more we understand. That’s how I feel about cultures and that’s what led me to study them so I could report on them better. There was no way I could feel like belonging to Marrakech, Istanbul or Harlem because there are too many cultural elements that I don’t know, that I haven’t grown up with, but this makes me want to know them. It’s in those different cultures and environments that I find the desire to learn and then tell what they are like. When I learn this, I feel there’s a part of me in a different place in the world, but most important, I feel I brought to light something that hadn’t been told before. And there are too many stories waiting to be told.

La nube se tragó al sol

Las nubes se estaban tragando el sol. Me pregunté si esta ciudad me tragará a mí otra vez.  

Ayer, a las 4 de la tarde no había nadie en la calle. Una hora después, todo el mundo salió del trabajo corriendo hacia el metro, el autobús, a casa. Las aceras llenas de gente caminando tan deprisa como podían. Tan deprisa que sentí que les estaba ralentizando. Camino demasiado despacio para esta ciudad.

Y de repente, otra vez las calles vacías: es el momento de “happy hour”, tomar algo y de vuelta a casa. Hay un momento para cada cosa. Pero no para mí. No allí de donde vengo.

Photo by CFPereda
Las nubes se tragaron al sol una tarde más.
The clouds swallowed the sun once again.

Mi tarde “española” consistió en un paseo, algunas compras en una tienda española :) y una película. Pero no había un horario para ninguna de estas cosas. Podía ocurrir o no.

El ritmo de la gente me hizo recordar como corría los últimos meses para llegar a todas partes cuando ni siquiera llegaba tarde. No necesitaba apresurarme, pero todo el mundo caminaba deprisa, así que yo también.

Caminaba deprisa, leía deprisa, trabajaba deprisa, comía deprisa. Hacía todo tan deprisa como podía. Pero esa no soy yo. Las cosas no son así en Madrid.

No quiero hacerlo otra vez. Quiero mantener el ritmo de casa. El ritmo de aquí se tragó el mío.

Nota: Es inevitable comparar aquí y allí, como se hacen las cosas en un sitio y en otro. Intento no generalizar: hay gente que va muy deprisa en Madrid también, pero siento que aquí todo el mundo corre un poco más, como si no quisieran que nadie les “robe” el tiempo.

The cloud swallowed the sun 

The clouds were swallowing the sun. I wondered if this city will swallow me again.

Yesterday, at 4 p.m. there wasn’t anyone outside. One hour later, everyone got out of work and rushed to get to the metro, the bus, home. The sidewalks were packed with people walking as fast as they could. So fast I felt I was slowing them down. My pace is too slow for this city.

And then no one else outside again: it’s time for “happy hour,” a few drinks, then back home again. There’s an hour for everything. But not for me. Not where I’m from. 

My Spanish afternoon in D.C. meant a walk, some shopping at a Spanish store and a movie. No determined schedule for anything. Just going.  It could happen or not.

But the packed sidewalks made me think again of how I rushed to get to places the last few months when I wasn’t even late. I didn’t need to walk so fast, but everyone walks like that, so I did too.

I walked fast, I read fast, I worked fast, I ate fast. I did everything as fast as I could. But that’s not me. Things are not like that in Madrid.

I don’t want to do it again. I want to keep the pace from home. The pace here swallowed mine.

Note: It’s impossible not to compare here and there, how everything is done in each place. I try not to generalize. There are people rushing in Madrid too, but I feel here everyone goes a little faster, as if they didn’t want someone to “take away” their time.

De vuelta

Washington me dio la bienvenida con calor en un día de invierno. Primavera a mediados de Enero para que no eche de menos el sol en España.

Aunque no duró demasiado. Los días grises que tanto me asustaban han regresado.

Dicen que no sabes lo que de verdad tienes hasta que lo pierdes. Los días grises no son lo mismo. El cielo está pálido, ni blanco, ni gris. Sabes que el sol está ahí en alguna parte, pero el cielo no te da pistas para encontrarlo. Parece que el día no acaba de empezar. Y de repente, se hace de noche y te preguntas por dónde se escaparon las horas.

Photo by CFPereda
Sunset from the Kennedy Center, in Washington, D.C.

Estoy de vuelta en Washington. De vuelta por las grandes avenidas, las enormes aceras y caminando entre todas las caras que nunca se parecen a aquellas que vi en Madrid hace sólo unos días. Es increíble como las caras de la gente te pueden recordar dónde estás y de dónde vienes. No es sólo la luz del día y cómo brille el sol, las calles o los idiomas que hable la gente en la calle. Mira sus caras. No se parecen a mí, pero son tan diferentes unas de otras que no me siento extranjera. Sólo soy una más.

Encuentro cierta calma viendo todas las caras diferentes. Nadie me mira cuando entro en el autobús o en el metro. Eso es algo que no me gusta de España y que disfruto aquí. No hay nada a lo que quedarse mirando, nadie tan diferente como para clavarle la mirada, porque todo el mundo es diferente.

Back 

Washington said hi with a surprisingly warm weather for a winter day. Spring in the middle of January so I don’t miss the sun in Spain.

It didn’t last long, thought. The gray winter days I was fearing are back.

They say that you don’t know what you have until you lose it. Gray days are just not the same. The sky is pale, not white, not gray. You know the sun is somewhere up there, but the white sky won’t give you a clue. It feels like the day never starts. And suddenly it’s night again and you wonder where the hours went.

I’m back here. Back at the huge avenues, the wide sidewalks, and seeing all the faces that never look the same to those I saw in Madrid just a few days ago. It’s amazing how people’s faces can remind you of where you are, and where you are from. It’s not just how the day light or how the sun shines, the streets or the languages people speak. Look at their faces. They don’t look like I do, but they are so different from each other that I don’t feel I’m an outsider. I’m just one more out there.

There’s some comfort seeing all these different faces. People here don’t stare at you when you enter the bus or the train. That’s something I don’t like in Spain and that I enjoy here. There’s nothing to stare at, no different one to stare at, because everyone is different.

Buscando el Sol de Madrid

Llevo días con la canción Te Dejo Madrid en la cabeza, pero ya no me hace tanta gracia que siga sonando.
Ahí te dejo Madrid…

Photo by CFPereda
Sunset at home, Madrid.

La canción de Shakira ya no suena bien porque a partir de mañana volveré a buscar atardeceres como este desde Washington. Dejo Madrid, y creo que hasta que no regresé aquí de vacaciones, no me di cuenta de cuánto echaba de menos cositas pequeñas, como las calles, las aceras estrechas, las caras de la gente, el calor, que nadie lleva prisa, que todo sucede más despacio y que casi todo el mundo parece entender lo fácil que es disfrutar.

Me llevo Madrid conmigo. Y seguirá estando aquí presente. Me llevo el calor de la gente, del sol, ahora que viajo hacia el frío. Me llevo la calma ahora que mis pasos se pierden entre las prisas. E intentaré robarle horas al día, para que no pase tan rápido, como si se escurrieran los minutos entre mis manos nerviosas.

Seeking the Sun of Madrid

The song Te Dejo Madrid has been playing on my mind, over and over again, but I don’t enjoy it anymore.
Ahí te dejo Madrid…

Shakira’s song no longer sounds ok because tomorrow I’ll seek sunsets like this in Washington. I’m leaving Madrid and I think that, until I came back here for the holidays, I didn’t know how much I missed the little things, like streets, narrow sidewalks, people’s faces, the warmth, the fact that no one’s on a hurry, that everything goes slowlier and almost everyone seems to understand how easy it is to enjoy things.

I’m taking Madrid with me. And it will be here too. I’m taking people’s warmth, the Sun, now that I’m going towards the cold. I am talking some Calm with me now that my steps will get lost in the stress. And I will try stealing some hours to my days, just so time doesn’t go as fast, as if the minutes drained between my shaky hands.

Callecitas

Photo by CFPereda
Una callecita de Toledo

I’ve been to Toledo a few times now and I had never been as shocked. I was shocked to see the cats in the roofs, walking under the sun to stay warm. I have missed things like that so much. Tiny little things to make you smile.

I felt I’ve been really far away the last few months. Not only in the distance that goes from here to the U.S.

I was so focused on my classes and everything I was doing that I even forgot how much I missed these little things from Spain.

Photo by CFPereda
Tejados

The narrow streets, the tiny coffee places, the light and the colors, yes, the colors. So bright.

And today I got all that and I feel happy. I am bringing here some pictures I took a while ago, but they represent what I want to leave here today.

I was thinking on the train: everything is so calm here, it seems you can do so much more in just one hour; I don’t feel exhausted when I go to bed and I have done so much more.

Photo by CFPereda
Otra callecita

This is home, yes. But also a different place. Even living in Madrid, a big city, sometimes seems a completely different world.

People don’t look the same, people don’t act the same way. It’s just not the same. And I love differences, I feel it’s great that we can share and learn, I love it. I just hadn’t realize how different everything is.
It’s home, it’s also something else.

El País uses Web site to turn readers into journalists

By Cristina Fernández Pereda 

El País, one of Spain’s major newspapers, shows after its last redesign how citizen journalism is changing the way news outlets present news both in print and digital format.

ELPAIS.com is an example of how citizen journalism, a community of blogs and crowdsourcing techniques can expand the newspaper’s content through the interaction with readers.

ELPAIS.com editors have worked on
the Web site’s redesign with consultants
Ally Palmer and Terry Watson.
Palmer & Watson were also in charge of
changes in news sites such as Le Monde,
in France; The Scotsman, in Scotland;
and Politiken, in Denmark.

El País published its first edition in 1976 and 31 years later, on Oct. 21, 2007, presented a major renovation that has changed its design, added different ways of gathering the news and modified its content. All the changes were reported by the newspaper’s editors through a blog named “Querer Comprender,” (Willing to Understand).

“We are betting on exclusive information, critical analysis of major topics and in-depth interviews, leaving on the side the routine and news conferences-journalism, and taking an important step towards the interaction of print and digital newsrooms,” Lydia Aguirre, director of ELPAIS.com, posted on the blog the Web site published to describe the changes.

The editors of ELPAIS.com have made significant efforts to provide readers with information updated every minute.

“We are incorporating more exclusive online content, with multimedia elements and the print and digital newsrooms working together 24 hours to provide better content in both formats,” Aguirre said.

The best example of how the digital edition is providing content to the print edition is the citizen journalism section Yo, Periodista (I, Journalist), a space created entirely by readers who send news with videos, pictures and audio. The section “where readers become journalists,” as it states on its front page, was launched on Nov. 20, 2006. In one year, the section became the best Interactive Emergent Project on the Internet, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau in Spain, which cited the paper’s efforts for its originality and vision.

When it started, Yo, Periodista originated 5 percent of the online news site’s users. One year later, 15 percent of the news site’s readers start their visit to ELPAIS.com through the citizen journalism section.

“People not only want to read online, they also want to create and share information. And information through readers’ integration in the creative process is a trend that will not stop,” Javier Moya, coordinator of the participative sections, said.

The content from Yo, Periodista affects both the digital and print editions of the paper. Moya recalls the case of the Virginia Tech shootings, when a Spanish student sent updates from the campus and provided first-hand information of what was happening there.

When a citizen journalist sent pictures from the chaos resulting from
eight days of strikes in the metro of Paris, El País had the chance to
continue their coverage by adding different angles.

In a more recent case, a reader sent pictures from the chaos in the Paris metro caused by eight days of strikes. El País had already reported about the strikes, “but the testimony of this reader gave us an opportunity to cover the workers’ negotiations with the government, something we wouldn’t have published without the pictures,” said Fernando Navarro, reporter for the digital edition.

“The content created by readers complements the news with a reader’s views on the event. It is good because this allows us to get to information the newspaper cannot reach any other way,” Moya said.

ELPAIS.com also launched a “Community” five months ago, allowing readers to publish blogs within the news site. So far, readers have created 6,000 blogs and some of their content also jumps to the different news sections.

“Sometimes we detect a post that could easily become a news story. We contact the blogger and suggest the possibility of using it in Yo, Periodista. If the story is more significant, it can even have a link from the main story written by one of El País’ reporters,” Moya said.

ELPAIS.com has developed the crowdsourcing strategy through the online news site: a link asks readers if they have been affected by a particular situation, from blackouts to train delays to a strike. The readers become sources providing the information the agencies cannot get: testimonies, images, videos and audio describing what the situation is like on the streets.

“This gives us data and suggests different angles to cover a story. It creates a feedback between the print edition, the online edition and the readers complementing the final product we give: information,” Moya said.

This information can come from all over the world. Appealing to its international audience (25 percent of the readers are outside of Spain), ELPAIS.com has created a Global online edition. “It’s a project for Spanish speakers outside of Spain who want to know what’s happening in the world: They all have their newspaper at the Global edition of El País,” Navarro said.

The editors of ELPAIS.com are conscious of their reader’s involvement with the newspaper. Last September, El País released the transcript of the interview between Spain’s former president, Jose Maria Aznar (1996-2004) and U.S. President George W. Bush on Feb. 22, 2003, in which the Bush admitted he would be in Iraq even if he didn’t have the United Nations’ support.

The story was widely reported and even prompted coverage in international newspapers, such as The Washington Post and USATODAY.com, when reporters asked the White House Press Secretary Dana Perinoabout the conversation. On Oct. 10, ELPAIS.com then announced a chat between Ernesto Ekaizer, the reporter who released the transcript, and readers.

“Ekaizer talked to readers in English and Spanish. In less than one hour, we had 600 questions from readers,” Aguirre said.

ELPAIS.com has introduced changes that engage the readers through multimedia content, improving the Video section and adding a television service, ELPAISTV with three channels.

“The impact has been immediate and significant, with a 20 percent increase of videos downloaded by our readers,” Aguirre said.

All the changes, such as participation tools, the blogs community and applications to customize the front page that allow readers to change the header style or the font size, type and color, appeal to an audience of both traditional readers and young people familiar with the digital technology.

“We are facing these challenges to offer a better product and engage younger readers who are starting to get involved in our society; we have to count on them for the next 10 or 15 years,” Javier Moreno, Director of El País, said according to EFE news agency.

His adjunct director, Juan Cruz, posted on the blog how Moreno has conceived the changes.

“The change is not over once it’s done. The change has just started.”

This story was published on the American Observer Dec. 4, 2007.