Irureta Azkun made an appointment on behalf of the LAR team:

"One of the thousands who make up the LUZ community has recently told us that sometimes LUZ is dark, that there is hard news that moves it inside. That we're doing a good job, but the bad news is knocking his throat out.

That sounds like something to think about, doesn't it? What should the independent media say about a world that has turned genocide into a daily bread? Write about the consequences that the decisions made by the powerful have caused us citizens, or focus on more rewarding places so that the news is not so heavy, so harsh? When protected natural spaces are filling us with museums for tourists, courts of Euskarafobos, mountains with windmills and seas with the bodies of migrant people, how can we enjoy the view without being too hard? Is there any way? The danger that the media will become the spreaders of despair is real.

This is an interesting debate, especially at a time when renewed fascism is taking over power centres here and there and one after the other. A couple of weeks ago, the meeting point of the new neo-fascism in the United States was organized coinciding with the beginning of Donald Trump’s term. We can hardly produce good news from what has been gathered and said there. It is only by focusing on their agenda that our mind has done it, because this prevents us from imagining the future in a different way.

They give answers. We need to change the questions.

It’s been 10 years since we’ve been using the slogan Influencing from the Little One. And the explanation we gave to this motto is still very vivid after a decade: “Smallness has a lot to do with the way of being of LA LUZ and the issues we work on, with degrowth, more sustainable lifestyles, movements born from the peoples, independence, criticality... Many little ones, acting from the small, because we are able to break the path to a different world.”

Invented by Pello Zubiria, who took the retreat in July last year, the sharp pen of the old journalist dog was right. He's got a point. We're doomed to act from the small. Not because we are little, or because without going into great waters, it is delicious in smallness. No, I don't. Because in front of those who think big and talk big, we need a lot of projects that, from the small, are able to influence us closely. We’ve been working from this perspective for the last few years. Often, decisions are not easy to make. Today I want to tell you about one of them.

In that parade of neo-fascists in Washington, on the front line, ahead of several world leaders, the tech-magnates came together to honor the new master. Those behind the diverse screens that have conquered most of the areas of our lives: Owners of Amazon, Meta, Apple, Google and TikTok, among others. And, of course, in front of them, Elon Musk from Twitter.

After this meeting, the concern of the main media dependent on the multinationals became whether this neo-fascist greeted him with a fascist greeting.In LA LUZ we’re going another way: we’re going to change the playing field. As of today, we’re not giving away free content to Facebook and Twitter. LA LUZ will no longer feed these two platforms that have turned citizens into publishers.

“We media have to be where people are,” this popular phrase has already shown its limits. As feminism has shown us well: the personal is political, and the decisions we make in our daily lives have a direct impact on our own lives and those of others. To publish on toxic platforms is to invite citizens to join them, it is to provide more readers possible for the hate speeches they promote. These social networks have been useful to us for several years and we have created communities of tens of thousands of people. It is not easy to get rid of them all of a sudden, but despite the contradictions, in LA LUZ we have come to the conclusion that we have to feed more habitable spaces. In toxic social networks the playing field is swapped, the referee is bought, as is the algorithm, and through bots the doping is fair to the wealthy. So goodbye Musk, goodbye Zuckerberg. Hello technology sovereignty! Hello little feast, and stay on Mastodon!

Even without resorting to toxic social networks, the consequences of the current colonial logic are obvious. We also met first-hand. We were threatened by the multinational Solway in 2023 for offering on our pages the words of friends who are influencing the little one in defense of the lands and lives of El Estor in Guatemala. We didn’t shut up and even two months ago, we went to Solway’s doors in November. His colleague Leire Artola traveled to Guatemala to continue reporting on the issues there, but this time, directly. Solway, you didn't want bread, so take the cake!

We need tools to do this, to move forward, to fight, to motivate. But above all, what we need, even as before, is people. People who will read us, who will criticize us, who will encourage us, and especially who will support us.

We are more friends than last year, we are more members. We have increased the number of subscribers for the tenth consecutive year since 2015. And we can already say that more than 40% of the budget of this project comes from the economic contribution made by the members of LA LUZ. This is our greatest income and the main guarantee of our economic, political and journalistic independence. Without you, the LIGHT is not.

If we talk about the future, we must also talk about it with the help of public institutions. And this year we must highlight with satisfaction the collaboration that, with a lot of work and many hours invested, has been created between the Basque media and the Government, with the help of Hinitiatives. We have agreed on new bases to subsidize the work of the media to make Basque a standardized language in the world of journalism, in order to dignify the work of Basque journalists, which has often been close to precariousness. And fortunately, we have to talk about the Navarrese government along the same lines. Because it has subsidized LUZ for our work in the creation and dissemination of Basque content about Navarre. Let these two news serve to perpetuate the path of collaboration and resolve situations that are still wrong, such as the unfair distribution of institutional advertising.

The 25 comrades that make up LUZ are going to add the 106th year to the history of this wonderful Basque media and adventure. Since 1919, our country has seen everything. Take care of it! And somehow, we’ve always managed to get ahead with small steps, but without going backwards. On the way to a Basque Country where you can live and enjoy, with open arms to the outside, in solidarity with the rest of the peoples.

We will continue to respond to those who seek to darken the world through LIGHT.”