Print and Publishing > Culture & Context

REPRINTING NICA

HAVAS COSTA RICA, San Antonio / LA PRENSA NEWSPAPER / 2024

Awards:

Shortlisted Cannes Lions
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Case Film
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Overview

Credits

Overview

Why is this work relevant for Print & Publishing?

The relevance of this work is to find a way in which, in a dictatorial context, the right to information can be recovered. In the only country in the world where the written press ceased to exist, La Prensa managed to become a written newspaper again thanks to the people. All Nicaraguans were part of this edition where exiled journalists wrote, edited, and published in Nicaraguan territory despite the oppressive regime, and it was the Nicaraguans in charge of distributing and printing from Nicaragua the newspaper that had disappeared for more than four years.

Please provide any cultural context that would help the Jury understand any cultural, national or regional nuances applicable to this work.

The newspaper La Prensa Nicaragua is a bastion of freedom of information in the Central American country. During its almost 100 years of existence, it has resisted different ways in which the dictators of this country have tried to close it down, with arson, bombings, assassinations of its journalists and its general director. During all these years it has also managed to stay in the homes of Nicaraguans despite earthquakes of more than 7.1 degrees that left the capital in total rubble and totally devastated. The Nicaraguan Press has never ceased to circulate in all these circumstances of the country's extremely convulsive past. Many have been the attempts to close the newspaper, none has worked, until 2019.

The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, after the social outburst that took place in the country in 2018, dedicated itself to persecute any kind of demonstration of civil rights, especially the right to information, that is why its main target was the journalists whom it declared enemies of the nation. From that moment on they were subject to harassment where their very lives were at risk under the dictatorship, causing many to resort to exile, but even the press continued to publish, it was until the imprisonment of the general manager and the seizure of the newspaper's facilities that finally a dictator managed to stop La Prensa de Nicaragua from circulating. The country became the only one in the world without a written press.

Background:

Since it can no longer be a physical newspaper due to the seizure by the dictatorship of the facilities of La Prensa de Nicaragua, so it has been hit economically and its perception among the public has diminished.

The problem is to get the newspaper La Prensa de Nicaragua to regain the cultural and social relevance it has had for almost 100 years on the day of the journalist.

The challenge is to create an action that puts us back at the forefront of information in Nicaragua and the communication of the truth, to challenge the impositions that have made it impossible for us to circulate for the last four years and make a statement to achieve a social impact to restore hope to a country that is submerged in dictatorship.

Describe the Impact:

Once the edition was published in our digital media, it became the most shared material in Facebook groups, forwarded by WhatsApp and Telegram, reaching more Nicaraguans than we could have achieved on our own.

Nicaraguans immediately printed the newspaper in their homes, uploading photos to social networks in which they were holding the newspaper and making it an icon of protest.

The edition traveled the world and the work of our journalists infiltrating the country where the dictatorship does not allow the profession to exist was news in hundreds of media outlets around the world, making the action to be taken to a UNESCO forum as a sign of the resistance of journalism. Weeks later the regime responded by redoubling its military presence on the border, but that will not stop us from continuing.

Please tell us about the social behaviour and cultural insight that inspired the work.

Since the wave of repression that began in 2019 by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, civic spaces were co-opted by a repressive apparatus. Among this persecution, journalists were declared enemies of the homeland and were subjected to harassment, death threats and threats of torture. That is why the newspaper La Prensa is so important for Nicaraguans, because it has accompanied them for almost 100 years and culturally it has been part of the historical moments of the country. When the regime managed to stop its circulation, the country's morale fell.

That is why this edition touches an emotional core of all Nicaraguans, the return to having the press in their hands represents a victory against the regime. The custom of having the newspaper in their hands became a necessary expression of protest in a country submerged in dictatorship.

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