A piece of news: El Nacional is the most-read native news website in Catalonia. Another: this is despite being the last to arrive on the playing field, a field where half a dozen were already fighting it out. And another: never has any digital paper in Catalonia seen results like El Nacional. In October 2017, with the referendum, we registered 3.71 million unique users according to ComScore, the analytics firm used by advertising companies. This January, we had 2.88 million (those in second place got 1.70 million). We've been the most-visited online news source since July 2017. To put it another way, we've become leaders, with clear water, in fifteen months. It has to be said, without arrogance, that that's not bad. We're up and running and it's all down to you.
A final piece of news: today marks two years since we became a website instead of a blog. That's why we're telling you all this. In 2016, you all, together, visited 33,544,456 pages on El Nacional, according to the analytics company OJD (a different one). In 2017, this number grew to 210,731,815 page views. That's a 628% growth. That'll do. Thank you very much for the part of this which is down to you, which is a lot.
Getting to the point
When we started, we promised (in Catalan) we would be "the best at getting to the point". If we pay attention to our audience, one way or another, we'll make progress. Certainly, it always seems to those of us who make this newspaper that we've still got a long way to go, that there are those things we still don't do well, however much we give of our brains, our hearts, our hands and our time, lots of time.
To be fair, however, it's worth saying that we succeed in many other aspects. That's why so many people like you come to visit us, people whose trust we have to earn almost hourly. There are 40 of us working at the newspaper, the majority journalists (when we started the blog, in September 2015, there were eight of us, six journalists).
Improbable presence
Over these two years we've discovered that the newspaper is present in people's lives in the most unlikely and ridiculous ways, beyond the front page, which isn't the main point of entry (boom!).
The director of a very famous SME said: "for me, El Nacional is the Telegram which brings me breaking news and the newsletter which collates and summarises it". He was talking about the message app where we publish the latest headlines in Catalan as quickly as we can and the bulletin where we summarise the day in headlines (you can sign up here to the English version -or the Catalan or Spanish if you want to stretch your language muscles- they're all free).
A famous writer who, moreover, worked for the competition, said, with vigorous hand gestures, that José Antich's editorials "structure the day for me". Whilst he did say this in a bar, it was too early to think he was exaggerating under the influence of anything.
Many of you follow us on social media, which is one of the things experts praise us about the most. We've got Facebook where almost 100,000 follow us across the three languages, Twitter (almost 90,000) and Instagram (only Catalan - 10,500 people).
And so on. The ways to be part of El Nacional are infinite. We would never finish.
Majority female and on mobile
85% of those who visit us do so via mobile devices, and more than a few of them via our app, available for both Android and Apple. The majority are women: 51%, the same proportion as our staff.
Something we've never wanted to waver from is the initial intention to give preference to news over opinion. We don't renounce analysis, "author views", "in depth" articles and all the rest. But we're not about pontificating and giving our opinions about facts.
Physical witness to that is our design, which remains clean, without distractions, as on the first day. Despite having gained more sections over time (La Llança, En Blau, Enquestes, this English version you're reading here...), our priority is the substance, not the form. We're not about flashy lights or bells and whistles. This is one of the merits for which, in 2017, ADG-FAD (an association of graphic designers and art directors) awarded us a silver Laus.
"We aim for the newspaper to occupy the central space in the country with very good reporting [...] and we will only be able to do this to the extent that newspapers are of the people and for the people", the editor said in his first editorial (in English). This article started, logically, with news. It ends with a promise: El Nacional is of the people and for the people. It's yours.