La Prensa

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1910

The newspaper La Prensa , during its years of existence (1910-1939), became by its own merits and general recognition the journalistic paradigm of the Island, being the predecessor of the current daily El Día .

For its time, it was a modern and dynamic publication that took over from the Diario de Tenerife , which was already declining in that second decade of the 20th century.

The first issue of La Prensa was published on 15 October 1910 from the workshops located at 15 Valentín Sanz Street (formerly Calle del Norte).

Its founder was the journalist and writer Leoncio Rodríguez (1881-1955). With a clear republican vocation expressed in its subtitle, the newspaper initially had four pages offering almost exclusively local content.

With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, a very impactful flow of information from abroad began to arrive on the islands, with the public eager to know what was happening in Europe, increasing attendance at traditional collective readings held in inns and barbershops, often attended by the illiterate. La Prensa soon made clear its affinity with the Allied cause, skilfully combining its sympathies with informational rigour. In this way, it quickly became the favourite newspaper of a heterogeneous audience. By 1916, it had a circulation of 3,000 copies.

As the 1920s progressed, the newspaper paid attention to the new trends of what was then called "mass culture." New topics were incorporated, not only political but also cultural, sports, and entertainment. For the first time, a rotary press and photogravure were used, increasing its pages to eight in 1928 and including the first photographs. By the end of that decade, La Prensa , given its wide circulation (5,000 daily copies), obtained significant income through advertising in its pages, employing around twenty salaried staff.

With the arrival of the Second Republic in April 1931, the newspaper experienced a golden age, reaching 7,000 daily copies. But after the start of the Civil War, Leoncio Rodríguez suspended publication until constitutional order was restored, which never happened.

The new Francoist regime merged La Prensa (whose last issue was published on 14 February 1939) with the Falangist organ Amanecer , to create a new newspaper, now called El Día , a daily that continues in circulation today.

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