This review has been posted by Berria and we have brought it with the Creative Commons license.

The point is that Argia is the Dean publication in journalism in Euskera; the only one that has come alive to fulfill the century in the entire history of journalism in Euskera. In the Castilian media, only two are advanced in this area: El Correo Español was born in 1903 as El Pueblo Vasco and in 1910 as Diario de Navarra. Later there will be El Diario Vasco (1934) and Sud Ouest (1944).

The launch of Zeruko Argia was a 32-year-old ecstasy that the cappuccino Damaso Intza passed through Chile, although the publication is as celestial as its name indicates. The first newspaper in Basque — El Día — was born and developed in the midst of war, between January and June 1937. It came from the hand of the PNV, and the gudaris did it in Bilbao, taking advantage of the infrastructure of the Euzkadi newspaper. The first newspaper in Euskera was a militant act of war. The second, Euskaldunon Egunkaria (1990-2003), had its first seed in Argia and its culmination in that police and judicial massacre directed by Judge Juan del olmo. It shows the plot of harassment.

“The day was not a normal newspaper,” said former local editor Eusebio Erkiaga, after half a century, in 1990. That is normal, this remains the objective and the challenge in the journalism work in Basque. In fact, the Basque press has never tempted monetary investors; in this district there have been no businessmen like the Godó brothers who promoted La Vanguardia in the 19th century, or the Ybarratarras of El Pueblo Vasco.

Another thing is the history of journalistic work in Basque, but also the current reality. The closest example, in time and in context, I found in the information from the Berria shareholders’ meeting: ‘They have agreed to update wages for the first time in ten years. They will rise, although they are still below the average remuneration of the media’. (New 02-06-2019). The militancy will still have to match the one that does not come in pasta.

The lack of normality has many other extremes. Goizalde Landabaso revealed in the book Korte bat, please (Alberdania, 2000) the obstacles to the collection of raw material – the contents – in Basque. The journalist hunting the vasco-speaker to give him at least a cut for the radio or for television in front of the microphone. In fact, "most of the social agents that exist in Euskal Herria think and produce their public activities in Spanish". This reflected the problem in the conclusions of the First Congress of Journalism in the Basque Country, held in 2004.

In any case, journalism in Euskera has the most difficult front on the web’s receivers. A year ago, in the survey on the consumption of Basque culture carried out by Siadeco, commissioned by the Elkar Foundation, only 21% acknowledged reading press in Basque, that is, only one in five citizens mentioned media in Basque. The red alarm is on. It requires new, specific and decisive approaches and measures in linguistic and cultural policies.

The centenary of the light has so far hardly been echoed in the media and in official circles. Nothing to do with the celebrations of the centenarians of Euskaltzaindia and Eusko Ikaskuntza that took place last year. I do not compare these organizations with the cooperative, multimedia and alternative Argia project. But that milestone marked by Argia in journalism in Euskera, not taking into account the centenary of a medium that has been the work of several generations, is to open another black hole in the collective memory.