Hernán Urquiza
TARIFA. El Duende de Tarifa closes its doors. The edition that you now hold in your hands, Number 100, is the last publication of our two year adventure. The reason is purely and exclusively economic. Even looking beyond the recession which currently affects the country as a whole and all its sectors, grim reality tells us that our project is not viable, and the cost of sustaining a professional structure such as we have created, is greater than the revenue we generate.
I believe that El Duende was evolving and growing towards fruition, and maybe we needed a couple more years to consolidate it properly as a news and publicity vehicle for Tarifa and the surrounding area. But business is business, and the figures speak for themselves, and that´s all there is to it.
As director of El Duende, it grieves me that this has to happen, but the marketing strategies which we tried to implement were not enough. One must face up to reality, analyse it, and then act accordingly. The moral of the story? There is only one reality, and it cannot be forced. Of course, I am left with a bitter taste in my mouth because the light at the end of the tunnel, on which we depended to keep on going, was finally never reached.
In any case, I would like to thank each and every business, individual, institution and political party who at one time or another has advertised in our newspaper. They recognised in El Duende the opportunity to transmit their message to Tarifa´s society, for which I offer my sincere thanks. I would like them to know that, as a newspaper editor, I feel very satisfied with the dimension and expectation that El Duende generated. It is also important to recognise that to create a high quality, professional, trustworthy product, one needs a basic structure such as we had. I never wanted to take a step backwards because, right or wrong, I believed that pressure was counteracted by professionalism, neglect by talent, and passivity by criticism.
In the months running up to the municipal elections last year all the political parties advertised in El Duende. This gave me great satisfaction because we had achieved recognition as a media source; another battle won.
Journalistically I believe that we carried out our task as best we could under the circumstances. In such a varied community as Tarifa, it was (and is) necessary for everyone to have a product like El Duende, and I know many people would agree with me. The editorial line which I tried to implement was basically that every single opinion be reflected in the pages of the newspaper because, at the risk of stating the obvious, plurality, the debate of ideas, and dissidence is how a society truly grows and strengthens.
As a faithful reflection of Tarifeño society, El Duende was produced by a team of people of different nationalities. Despite cultural differences, we joined forces with our different criteria to report, week after week, the news from the place in which we all live.
Over these two years I have invested all my energies, all my efforts and all that I have learned during my twelve years working in the written press. But as I have expressed to all those who have worked in El Duende, none of us are the same professionally or personally since we had this wonderful creative experience. As a dear friend once said to me, the good moments we have enrich us as people. And over the last two years there have been many good moments.
In conclusion I would like to share some of the words spoken recently by the excellent North American journalist Tom Wolfe to a group of recently graduates. “You have a great opportunity to become great writers. The future belongs to non-fiction, believe me. The future is journalism, it really is. It will never die, because it cannot be assasinated. I hope you have the chance to inherit the wind, as well as the lessons from the past. I need to tell you that you should feel responsible for bringing the truth to light. May you have the opportunity to take charge of the minds and hearts of your people”. Thank you Tarifa. Viva El Duende and Viva Tarifa.
Translation: Vanessa Rogers
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