EL PAÍS revitalizes its Society section, enhancing content of interest to the general public

EL PAÍS rolls out this Sunday its revamped Society section, while also overhauling its Opinion section and Ideas supplement. The changes come as the newspaper is restructured to offer readers ever higher quality and greater differentiation across all platforms, and builds on the process of digital transformation.

SOCIETY

The new Society section will be providing more space to cover the issues that most directly concern and affect the general public. A new team of journalists, many of them with long track records in areas such as Education, Health, Environment, Inequality, Feminism, Dependency and Religion, will be joining deputy editor Berna Gonzalez Harbour and the editor-in-chief Maribel Marín Yarza. The Society section will provide a vital platform and voice to all those who most inspire us and will be carefully tuned into the demands and expectations of readers in the areas of human rights and freedoms.

This section will also have its own social media accounts, designed not only to get the news and information to our audiences but, more importantly, to listen, interact and engage with them within a space that fosters tolerance and respect.

OPINION

EL PAÍS is also strengthening its Opinion section in both print and online editions. From Sunday, it takes up four central pages. Editorials will stand out to a much greater extent in the page design, while letters to the editor will be given pride of place. The unique take on current affairs of cartoonists Peridis and El Roto will continue to appear daily in the pages of the newspaper and on the Internet. A major novelty is the use of photography: from Monday to Saturday, a prestigious photographer will publish a picture – one per day – from a collection of photos with a common thread.

DIGITAL INNOVATION

The laboratory created this year to work on new digital formats and to innovate in editorial content is being reinforced with the incorporation of new designers, developers and data journalists. This multidisciplinary team will work transversally with the rest of the newsroom to foster new ways of narrating the most important stories. The 'Lab' will be headed by Patricia Gosálvez and Guiomar del Ser. The management of social networks becomes the responsibility of Soledad Alcaide, while two editors, Luis Barbero and Jorge Rodríguez, will coordinate the EL PAÍS website, chiefly its front page and breaking news. In order to ensure the accuracy of everything that is published on the Internet – which is often urgently published in close to real time –a quality control division has been created and is being overseen by experienced editors.

IDEAS

This Sunday supplement also gets a makeover with a greater emphasis on analysis and opinion and a range of new contributors and writers. Joaquín Estefanía, deputy editor and former chief editor of EL PAÍS (1988-1993), will pen a weekly column entitled Essays of Persuasion, and the historian Santos Juliá will be behind the series Political Lexicon. The journalist Enric González, the philosopher Amelia Valcárcel, the writer and essayist Edurne Portela, the analyst Andrés Ortega, the graphic artist Malagón and the cartoonist Luis Grañena also join the supplement.

Ideas, coordinated by Joseba Elola, takes an in-depth look at current issues, ranging from major international affairs to the impact of new technologies in our society, and seeks to provide context and fresh perspectives on the news while maintaining a commitment to innovative journalistic formats (many of which are digital).

ECONOMY

This area is headed by deputy editor Miguel Jiménez. The Economy editor, Cristina Delgado, will be at the helm of the business supplement Negocios, while its current editor, Fernando Gualdoni, is being assigned to special supplements. This newspaper section addresses issues that go way beyond the purely economic and which impact on social or leisure issues such as health, education, mobility and urbanism, business and trade, communication, employment, food and the environment.

SPAIN

With regard to political coverage, greater weight will be given to parliamentary and legal news and updates, and there will be a greater focus on foreign policy and national security. Likewise, the Madrid section gets a revamp and will now be headed by Luis Gómez and Lucía González – until now at the helm of Verne. The Madrid section will cover issues relevant to the daily life of the city, with more reports and cultural suggestions and recommendations. The Verne website, created to tackle issues involving the Internet, is to broaden its focus to engage younger readers, and will be headed by Mariluz Peinado.

SPORTS

The Sports section of EL PAÍS, with José Sámano as editor, will be also joined by a new team. The journalist Santiago Segurola, who has collaborated with newspaper for many years, will write every Tuesday, while Jorge Valdano will have a column on Saturdays. This section will forge ahead with digital development and seek to offer new narratives, all while delivering increased coverage of women's sport.

ENRIC GONZÁLEZ, NEW BUENOS AIRES CORRESPONDENT

Journalist Enric González returns to EL PAÍS as the newspaper’s correspondent in Buenos Aires, a post held till now by Carlos E. Cue. Gonzalez, who has previously held the post in London, Paris, Washington, Rome and Jerusalem, will also have a weekly column on Sundays in the supplement Ideas. His time spent in these cities led him to write a series of books: Stories from London (1999), Stories from New York (2006) and Stories from Rome (2010).

Amanda Mars moves to the Washington desk, where she’ll be joined by Pablo Guimón and Yolanda Monge. María Sahuquillo, meanwhile, is being appointed as Moscow correspondent. Pilar Bonet, who first went to the then capital of the USSR in 1982, will continue writing from Russia. Rafael de Miguel is joining the London desk.

Among Spanish-language newspapers, EL PAÍS has the world’s largest network of correspondents, testament to its a commitment to providing truly global news. It’s a commitment that has been notably reinforced in recent years with the creation and expansion of the Americas edition, now led from Mexico by Javier Moreno, editor of the newspaper between 2006 and 2014.