photo: amic
The first two-day Inter-Pyrenees Congress ended in La Seu d’Urgell, the Catalan city bordering Andorra, with a participation of 180 media representatives of the Pyrenees publishing information in Catalan. The event was attended by journalists and editors of the Basque Country, Navarra, Aragon, Catalonia, Ariege, Andorra, the Balearic Islands and Valencia. Among the topics discussed are the guidelines for the media and the modern priorities of readers, the presence of women in the media business, the use of artificial intelligence in managing social networks, as well as building the relationship between digital media and commercial structures. Following the congress, we talked with one of the main organizers – the president of the Media and Communications Association (AMIC), Ramon Grau:
“Twenty years ago, a small group of Catalan language media editors founded an association that became a serious lobbying organization of Catalan-language journalists for at least eight years ago. Today our association has 325 media — these are non-state media, but private ones, from all the Pyrenees where people speak Catalan. What is more, The number of digital media significantly dominates the number of traditional print media.
During the congress, one of the speakers, Dean of the Faculty of Journalism and Professor at the University of Navarra, Ramón Salaverría, noted that the influence of digital media in general is noticeably growing. According to him, the first digital media in Spain appeared in 1995. In 2019, 3,837 digital media were registered in Spain. Moreover, the digital media of the Pyrenees account for only 29.3% of the total number of digital media in Spain. The dominant share is in Catalonia – 18.6%, the Basque Country is 4.6%, Aragon is 2.3%, Navarra is 2.2% and the rest of the regions – 1.6%.
The congress was dedicated to the Pyrenees, as this region can serve as an example to demonstrate the cohesion of the media, including digital ones, and the popularization of the Catalan language.
One of the main challenges facing us today is to help our members attract advertising. For this, we continue to develop cooperation with the largest representatives of the region’s business. ”
Jacqueline Terno
