Despite being mostly distributed in Catalonia, La Vanguardia is Spain's fourth-highest circulation among general-interest newspapers, trailing only the three main Madrid-based ones – El País, El Mundo and ABC – all of which are national newspapers with offices and local editions throughout the country.
The newspaper's editorial line leans to the centre of politics and is moderate in its opinions, but during Francoist Spain, it followed the Francoist ideology. It retains Catholic sensibilities and strong ties to the Spanish nobility through the Godó family.
History and profile
Beginnings
First issue of La Vanguardia, 1881
On 1 February 1881 in Barcelona,[3][4] two businessmen from Igualada, Carlos and Bartolomé Godó, first published the paper. It was defined as a Diario político de avisos y notícias (Political Newspaper of Announcements and News), intended as a means of communication for a faction of the Liberal Party that wanted to gain control over the Barcelona city council.
La Vanguardia is one of the oldest papers in Spain as well as the only Catalan newspaper that has survived all the Spanish regime changes, from the restoration of Alfonso XII to the 21st century.[5]
From 1939 to 1978, its title included the word Española to accommodate a better state ideology.[8] The paper was one of two major dailies in Francoist Spain together with ABC.[8] In the late 1970s and 1980s, La Vanguardia had close connections with Convergence and Union alliance.[9]
In 1987, La Vanguardia received the second largest amount of state aid.[10]La Vanguardia was published in berliner format[11][12] until 2 October 2007 when it began to use tabloid format.[13] The daily was awarded the World's Best Designed Newspaper for 1994 by the Society for News Design (SND).[14]
Circulation
The circulation of La Vanguardia was 221,451 copies in February 1970 and 218,390 copies in February 1975.[15] Five years later, the circulation of the paper was 188,555 copies in February 1980.[15]
In 1993, La Vanguardia had a circulation of 208,029 copies, making it the fifth best-selling newspaper in Spain.[16][17] In 1994 it was the fourth best selling newspaper in the country with a circulation of 207,112 copies.[17][18]
La Vanguardia had a circulation of 205,000 copies in 2001.[19] Its circulation was 203,000 copies in 2003.[20][21] Between June 2006 and July 2007 the daily had a circulation of 209,735 copies.[2] The 2008 circulation of the paper was 213,413 copies.[22] It sold 196,824 copies in 2011.[23]
Language
The newspaper has printed daily in two parallel editions, one in Spanish and, since 3 May 2011, another in Catalan.[24] The Spanish name La Vanguardia is used for both editions (rather than L'Avantguarda, the Catalan translation). Before the birth of the Catalan edition, letters to the editor submitted in Catalan were always left untranslated.
La Vanguardia has been open about their use of an automatic translation tool to produce both language editions, claiming that "an average of 80,000 words are translated from Spanish to Catalan or vice versa each day".[25][26]
Premios Vanguardia
The Premios Vanguardia[27] known in English as the Vanguardia Awards[28] or La Vanguardia Prizes,[29] are annual awards presented by the newspaper. The awards aim to recognise the work of organisations and people who are high achievers in the social, economic, political, or cultural fields. The jury consists of several prominent people, along with members of La Vanguardia's editorial staff.[citation needed]
12Ortiz Gómez, Teresa; Ignaciuk, Agata (2013). ""Pregnancy and labour cause more deaths than oral contraceptives": The debate on the pill in the Spanish press in the 1960s and 1970s". Public Understanding of Science. 24 (6): 658–671. doi:10.1177/0963662513509764. hdl:10481/87540. PMID24259515. S2CID28696508.
12Giner, Juan A.; Maxwell, Kenneth (1983). "Journalists, Mass Media, and Public Opinion in Spain, 1938–1982". The Press and the Rebirth of Iberian Democracy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.[ISBNmissing]
↑Schroeder, Roland (2004). "Interactive Info Graphics in Europe-- added value to online mass media: a preliminary survey". Journalism Studies. 5 (4): 563–570. doi:10.1080/14616700412331296473. S2CID144687383.
↑"World Press Trends"(PDF). Paris: World Association of Newspapers. 2004. Retrieved 15 February 2015.
↑"Diez años de 'La Vanguardia' en catalán". La Vanguardia (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 January 2025. Cada día la redacción y los editores traducen una media de 80.000 palabras de castellano a catalán o al revés. [...] Todo este proceso, claro está, sería imposible sin la ayuda de la traducción automática, nuestra tuneadísima Lucy (provista por Lucy Software), y la revisión humana, imprescindible, en manos de expertos de la edición.
↑"La Vanguardia en catalán cumple cinco años". La Vanguardia (in Spanish). Retrieved 29 January 2025. Sin metáforas, Lucy es el software de traducción automática que La Vanguardia utiliza para elaborar las dos ediciones lingüísticas del diario. El nombre es un abreviamiento de la empresa que proporcionó el programa, LucySoftware, y que sigue colaborando con el diario en las actualizaciones periódicas.
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