El País celebrated its 50th anniversary [1] on Friday with a festival in Madrid featuring oral histories and cultural events.
The milestone marks a half-century of journalistic legacy for one of Spain's most influential publications. By centering the celebration on dialogue and reporting, the organization aims to reinforce the role of journalism as a space for encounter and ideas.
Events for the anniversary were held across various venues in the city, including the historic Café Gijón. The festival combined public conversations with a reflection on the evolution of the newsroom over five decades.
As part of the commemorations, the newspaper released a video featuring six special correspondents who shared their experiences reporting from the war in Ukraine [2]. The group included Luis Doncel, María Sahuquillo, Jacobo García, Óscar Gutiérrez, Mónica Ceberio, and Luis de Vega.
These journalists recounted the challenges of documenting conflict in real time. Their testimonies serve as a focal point for the festival's goal of fostering dialogue about the realities of reporting in high-risk zones.
The anniversary programming also included a dedicated oral history project. This initiative sought to document the collective memory of the staff and the institutional history of the paper since its inception.
“El País is celebrating its 50th anniversary”
The 50th-anniversary celebration of El País highlights the enduring tension between traditional print legacies and the modern necessity of field reporting in conflict zones. By pairing historical retrospectives with current testimonies from Ukraine, the publication is positioning itself not just as a record of the past, but as an active participant in global geopolitical documentation.
