La Voz de Galicia


La Voz de Galicia is a Spanish daily newspaper owned by the Corporación Voz de Galicia. La Voz is highest circulation newspaper in Galicia and the eighth-highest circulation general-interest daily newspaper in Spain. It is written primarily in Spanish with Galician used in the cultural and opinion sections.
The newspaper was founded in 1882 by Juan Fernández Latorre and is published in A Coruña, Galicia.
The paper has a digital version available in Spanish and Galician, however the Galician version is an automatic translation, the original articles are written exclusively in Spanish.

History

Juan Fernández Latorre founded La Voz de Galicia in 1882 as a republican, progressive newspaper. Consolidated in the republican era with a circulation of more than 20.000 daily copies, it was not until the 1960s, when Santiago Rey Fernandez-Latorre, the founder's grandson took over as manager, that La Voz began its expansion.
In May 2010, La Voz started a Digital Terrestrial Television station V Televisión. The Fundación Santiago Rey Fernández-Latorre manages, besides the museum, the programs of Voz Natura and Prensa-Escuela.
In 1993 the circulation of La Voz was 107,446 copies. The paper had a circulation of 111,000 copies in 2003. The 2008 circulation of the paper was 103,341 copies. It was 94,844 copies in 2011.

Political allegiance

Like the majority of Galician newspapers, La Voz de Galicia relies on regional government subsidies for its survival, heavily compromising its editorial independence. Following the 2009 Galician parliamentary elections in which the center-right People's Party of Galicia defeated the center-left Spanish Socialist Workers' Party-Bloque Nacionalista Galego coalition, the newspaper was awarded more than 4 million euros in subsidies. Other Galician media, like the defunct newspaper Xornal de Galicia, born to compete with La Voz de Galicia, claimed that this was reward for its political bias towards the ruling People's Party. This kept the paper alive, while other media disappeared because they lacked the financial support that they were entitled to as Galician language papers.

Editions

The newspaper publishes 14 editions every day, carried out by journalists from 26 different areas and resources which allows the reader to obtain the closest information on everyday reality. Each edition is singled out by an insert within the newspaper which gathers all local information, a specific first page for each area and targeted information within the main body of the newspaper, specially in the sports section. This personalization implies the production of nearly 400 daily pages processed by the editorial staff and the printing department, of these the reader gets to see an average of 96 pages in his local edition.
With the opening of the Ferrol branch office in 1953, La Voz de Galicia was the first newspaper to undertake this editorial system which served as model to other newspapers outside Galicia. From that moment on, the expansion was carried out in various phases. In 1959 the Santiago branch was opened, in 1964 the one in Carballo and so on up to 1978, when the seven Galician cities had their own local editorial office. By 1990 the other main regions were also covered and short after the editorial staff office in Madrid was inaugurated, city that has a numerous Galician population.
This territorial organization allows La Voz de Galicia to have representatives in these areas in order to meet the necessities and interests of each city and region: the delegates are who manage the manpower appointed to each branch office and who defend the interests of the Corporación Voz and its readers.
La Voz has also a weekly supplement, Golfiño.

Digital edition

On 17 May 2000, coinciding with the celebration of the Día das Letras Galegas, honouring the figure of the Galician writer, Manuel Murguía, La Voz de Galicia launched its web page. During these past years, lavozdegalicia.es has been consolidated as Galicia's most visited website and one of Spain's best reference sources in digital newspapers, with 25 million visits monthly and 2 million exclusive users. Part of its success lies in the fact that the constant updating of information complies with the users needs for an accurate and speedy news development. From the early morning hours till way past midnight, navigators can keep up with last minute information. And the visitors can not only keep themselves informed on what's occurring in the world, but can also go beyond the news. The team of professionals in charge of the web, add on to the most relevant news events of the day, photographs, text analysis, computer graphics, photo galleries, videos or links to other websites.
The desire to adapt to the society's needs for complete up-to-date news has caused a sustained growth of audience during these last years, where significant increases in visits are registered in those days of intensive information, as occurred, for example, during the Galician elections in 2009, which caused a record of 245.000 visits the day following election day.
Besides news articles, La Voz’s web makes use of interactive and multimedia formats normally applied in the Internet, to elaborate special reports that give visitors a follow-up of the top stories, such as the celebration of elections, war conflicts o notorious sports events.
The web also offers its users different services, such as weather forecasts which are updated four times a day, stock quotes in real time, the newspaper's library or the Buscavoz, which is the web's search engine to locate a specific event or article. It also counts with a specific version for mobile devices and it hosts a community blog, where readers can participate with their opinions.
In the first half of 2020 the website lavozdegalicia.es was one of the most popular and reliable sources in Galician Wikipedia.
According to Alexa, the website lavozdegalicia.es is the 163rd most popular website in Spain.

Commentators and columnists

Intellectuals Manuel Murguía and Emilia Pardo Bazán were commentators during the early stage of the newspaper. Other contributors included Santiago Casares Quiroga, Andrés Martínez Salazar, Manuel Aznar, Ramón Otero Pedraio, and Castelao. The Second Republic is considered to have been the paper's golden age as far as its columnists are concerned, with articles written by some of the period's most relevant personalities, such as Josep Pla, Julio Camba, Gregorio Marañón, Azorín and Ramón Pérez de Ayala.
During the 1950s the readers were able to enjoy the comments written by Alvaro Cunqueiro, as well as those provided by international commentators such as Walter Lippman and Augusto Assia. Afterwards, during the transition, they were able to appreciate the works of Francisco Umbral, a well-known Spanish writer.
The over one hundred columnists and commentators who collaborate with La Voz follow the same pluralistic line, including Xavier Alcalá, Xaquín Alvarez Corbacho, José Ramón Amor Pan, Manel Antelo, Xosé Carlos Arias, Xosé Luis Barreiro Rivas, Ignacio Bermúdez, Roberto Blanco Valdés, Xosé Carlos Caneiro, María Canosa, Manuel Luis Casalderrey, Jorge del Corral, Isaac Díaz Pardo, Federico Fernández de Buján, Lourenzo Fernández Prieto, X.L. Franco Grande, Victor F. Freixanes, Juan Gómez-Jurado, Uxío Labarta, Inma López Silva, Marina Mayoral, José Luis Meilán, Juan J. Moralejo, Pablo Mosquera, Miguel Anxo Murado, Gonzalo Ocampo, Fernando Onega, José Manuel Otero Lastres, Gonzalo Parente, Ventura Pérez Mariño, Ramón Pernas, Albino Prada, Andrés Precedo Ledo, Carlos Reigosa, Ernesto Sánchez Pombo, :es:Yashmina Shawki|Yashmina Shawki, Inocencio F. Arias, Domingo Bello Janeiro, José C. Bermejo Barrera, Manuel Blanco Desar, Jaime Concheiro, Celso Currás, Manuel Fernández Blanco, Esperanza Guisán, Javier Guitián, Pedro González-Trevijano, Ramón Irigoyen, Antonio Iaquiero, Arturo Maneiro, Manuel Menor Currás, Victor Moro, Carlos Nárdiz, and José Antonio Vázquez Taín.