In that cold month of February 2014, 35,000 people requested the resignation of Yolanda Barcina; the Parliament of Navarra investigated the ‘Goikoetxea’ case of UPN; the leader of the PSN, Roberto Jiménez, dismissed the Navarre policy and, despite the running of UPN-PSN, both parties were willing to agree on the next term.

However, in May 2015 the numbers did not allow it and the change occurred. That was one of the foundational goals of Ahotsa.info: making it possible and nurturing change. Five years later they were satisfied that “with all the successes and mistakes” that change is underway. Giving strength and being the voice of popular movements is one of the genes in the media.

The initiative consisted of the collection of EUR 23,000 by crowdfunding and the resumption of activity on the network. Again? Yes, you could say, depending on where you come from. Ahotsa.info did not start from scratch, as it is heir to websites Apurtu.org – 2007-2011 – and Atea ireki – 2011-2013. The National Court ordered the closure of both accused of serving as support for Basque political prisoners and within the framework of the “everything is ETA” strategy of the Spanish State. The Voice itself has felt the state’s harassment on more than one occasion, the last in 2018: The National High Court opened an investigation considering that the media used "Basque political prisoners" in two news items published in July of the same year. The complaint was made on the initiative of the National Police and the judges did not take the step.

After the closure of Apurtu, the journalist of that medium, Michelangelo called Pitu, spent a year and a half in prison. He also worked at Atea Ireki and today is one of the souls of Ahotsa. He and Iñigo Orduña Majaris are the only salaried workers in the project. Around them, half a dozen other collaborators work, including Nagore, Nekane, Unai and Jon.

Over 1,000 videos

Pitu or Majaris are there with their cameras and microphones, or also Nagore or some other, picking up their phones and shaking information on social media. Few but fruitful, they're everywhere. This journalist recalls that on 29 September 2017 – 1 October was the referendum in Catalonia – the ARGIA working group arrived in the area of Can Batlló in the Sants district of Barcelona, where information about the referendum was expected and… “here too?”. Three or four Voice journalists, accompanied by Ekin Klike photographers, were there.

Video is your secret weapon: within a few hours of receiving the event, the work is published on your website and on social networks. More than 1,000 videos have been produced throughout the day. Some of them call social media, such as the first evictions of the Gaztetxe Marvels or the incidents that have occurred around it. The video of that expulsion, for example, has had 232,000 visits on You Tube and a tweet with a photo of the great demonstration on 24 March in Altsasu, got 1,000 hits on Twitter. It is also difficult for the much larger media to reach those figures. They have on Twitter 21,700 followers, on Facebook 20,000 and on You Tube 7,300.

Its action shows that journalism is also of a controlling nature, especially in terms of the work of the security forces. Many of Ahotsa's videos have been very important in supporting the trial in several trials, as they have denied the police version. In the digital age, however, the other side of the coin is that they wanted to use their works to denounce several people; recently, the delegation of the Spanish Government in Navarra used a tweet from Ahotsa to ban the act of the first anniversary of the death of the prisoner Xabier Rey.

The street, brand of the middle

In Katakrak we have a conversation with Pitu and Majaris. The question is on the table: And why the video? Pitu says it is a modern format and it moves well on the networks, “In addition, in Navarra there has been a culture of video, among other things, with the Solar Videos. In addition, it is not a difficult tool, it has many resources and with a little training and creativity you can do a lot of things.” In any case, both are clear on what is most important: “Being on the street is our brand and telling what’s going on.”

However, not everything is gold, the harsh precariousness in today’s society and in journalism knows well the intricacies of Ahotsa. They have to make low salaries and many hours of work, “but at least we do what we want,” Pitu said. The medium has several sources of funding where the backbone is its 200 partners. They also use advertising and the production of commercial videos as a means of financing. In the last legislature, they have also received EUR 3,000 in two years of grants from the Government of Navarra for using the Basque language among its contents. Today, one third of production is in Euskera, “and the trend is upward,” Pitu proudly says. Whoever remains on the ARGIA network will often see Ahotsa’s news and videos, through copyleft policy.

Elections are returning in May, and change could be in a delicate situation. The future of a precarious may be that way. So, forgetting the past, we've thrown you into the future. “There’s no time to think about the future, we’re playing game by game and it’s already.”

They went to the next match in the San Juan district, where at 20:00 hours the 15th anniversary of the murder of Ángel Berrueta was honoured. We go with them. The dispute has taken place without the cold or rain covering the heat of the act, which has been hot. An hour and a half later we return to the Old Part of Pamplona. Today’s work will be launched by Majaris. I did not ask him if he would do it before or after dinner, but before midnight the words of Aitziber, daughter of Ángel Berrueta, were on the net: “They killed you because a Spanish government calmed society by saying that the attacks of March 11 were committed by ETA.” Above all, your voice is the most important thing.