This month, Spain Expat Press passed 250,000 readers a month for the first time. It is a milestone we could scarcely have imagined at the outset, and it means a great deal to us. We should like to use these lines to thank you, and to set down once more why we do what we do.
When we launched Spanien Press, we had no way of knowing how many people would want a newspaper that declines the easy headline. We now have the beginnings of an answer: you. Every visit, every article shared and every message sent our way has told us that there is room for a different way of reporting on Spain.
One newspaper, now in two languages
Spain Expat Press began life as Spanien Press, a German-language publication for the many German speakers who live in Spain or follow it closely. That remains our home, and Spanien Press continues as before.
Spain’s foreign community, however, is far broader. It includes Britons and Irish, Dutch and Scandinavians, Americans, Eastern Europeans and many others. By publishing in English, the closest thing to a common language among expatriates, we can now reach all of them, whatever their mother tongue. The principles are the same, the standards are the same; only the readership has grown.
Why we exist
Millions of people born elsewhere now make their lives in Spain. Many more follow its affairs from abroad: they own a home on the coast, are weighing a move, have children at a Spanish university, or simply care about the country.
All of them face the same difficulty. The news reaches them; the context does not. They hear of a reform, a regional election or a general strike, yet lack the key to understanding what is at stake and why it stirs such debate. Spain Expat Press was founded to close that gap.
What you will not find here
We do not publish lurid crime stories to harvest clicks. We do not inflate headlines, nor turn every development into an alarm. We do not chase scandal for its own sake.
Sensationalism, we know, draws an audience. We also know what it leaves behind: a distorted picture of the country, and readers better informed about the grisly than the important. We would rather grow steadily, and grow well.
What we aim to be
Our ambition is serious, informative journalism that supplies context. We want to explain not only what has happened, but why it matters and how it touches the lives of those who live here.
We want you to know what is being discussed when you switch on the evening news. To follow the conversation at the bar, or over coffee with the neighbours, and to hold an informed view of your own. To feel not like an onlooker from outside, but a part of this society.
Belonging, after all, is about more than learning the language or registering at the town hall. It means understanding the debates that move the country: its traditions, its tensions and its hopes. That is the service we intend to offer you every day.
What comes next
A quarter of a million readers is not a destination but a point of departure. We will keep working to bring you a wider range of subjects, deeper analysis and still clearer explanations of events in Spain.
We hope to do so with you. Write to us and tell us what interests you, what puzzles you in the news, or what you feel is missing. Your questions are very often our best ideas for the next article.
If you value what we do, the most useful support is also the simplest: share Spain Expat Press with friends, neighbours and acquaintances who would also like to understand the country they call home.
Thank you for reading us, for placing your trust in us, and for choosing information over noise. This is only the beginning.
From all of us at Spain Expat Press
