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    Invasor newspaper: 49 years of history

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    Periódico Invasor: 49 años de historia

    The newspaper Invasor, founded on July 26, 1979, in the heat of the celebrations for the twenty-sixth anniversary of the assaults on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks, materialized the desire to have a newsprint in the newly emerged province of Ciego de Ávila.

    Its first outing perpetuates for history the desire to create a publication "with local characteristics, capable of disseminating the efforts of the people, contributing to political and ideological work, and reflecting the successes and setbacks of Ciego de Ávila citizens for history."Directed in its beginnings by the journalist Rolando Cedeño Capote, it had its newsroom in Marcial Gómez Street, number 401, in the main city.

    It covered the void that had remained in the local periodical press since the disappearance of the newspaper El Pueblo ―the most important newspaper during the neocolonial period, with more than half a century at the service of the bourgeois class―, whose edition culminated in 1959, according to the historian and journalist José Antonio Quintana García.

    After the triumph of the Revolution, only the most relevant events in Ciego de Ávila were reported in the Camagüey newspaper Adelante, which had a correspondent in this territory until the appearance of Invasor.

    The nascent publication was printed in some workshops located near the newsroom, where they had an American-made flat-rotating, whose last patent was from 1906.

    With this machine, daily print runs of up to 11,000 copies were made in broadsheet format, with four pages and poor printing quality, due to the obsolescence of technology, the founder Héctor Paz Alomar recalled.

    Until April 1987, the workers maintained their departure under adverse conditions; Later, a printing press was built in the territory with relatively modern Soviet technology, which facilitated the circulation of the newspaper in tabloid format, eight pages, with the inclusion of the color red and a new design.

    When it came out on that date, it premiered the identification logo that it maintained until 2006, conceived by Ángel Malagón, then chief designer of the Trabajadores Newspaper. Symbolism and simplicity distinguished the image adopted at the end of the 1980s, recalled (in 2008) Migdalia Utrera Peña, who directed that newspaper from 1988 until her death in 2013.

    While it maintained its status as a newspaper, it was characterized by the predominance of information referring to events that were taking place in different parts of the Ciego de Ávila geography. The sugar harvest, the main economic line of the province at that time, was a recurring theme in its pages.

    Several moments have marked the existence of Invasor, such as the transfer to the current newsroom on Avenida de los Deportes, in the main city, on August 13, 1988; and the transformations during the 1990s, with the beginning of the so-called Special Period.

    As of 1992, due to the scarcity of paper, its output was limited to three times a week, again with four pages, in broadsheet format. The sheets were returned to the old size so as not to lose space, given the orientation of reducing the number of sheets.

    Without the arrival of more raw materials and as a consequence of the gradual depletion of the existing reserves, the almost paralysis of the Cuban written press was inevitable, faced with such a dilemma, at the end of the same year it was transformed into an eight-page weekly with output on Saturdays and print run of 21 thousand copies.

    Unlike some of the other publications, it benefited from the weekly outing as it reduced the workload for the six or eight journalists it had out of a staff of fourteen.

    The loss of journalism opened the doors to journalistic investigation and opinion. They began to carry out work with better conditions to instruct and guide the readers, in addition to facilitating the improvement of the workers, Utrera Peña declared.

    The weekly from July 30, 1994 resumed the tabloid format and again had eight pages.

    The arrival of the first computers in the newsroom in 1997 and the efforts of the workers to improve themselves and take on technological change made it possible to create the first web page on February 24, 2000. This was a challenge that they took on despite not having the specialists for that purpose.

    The digital site had a simple but functional structure, and was located in the largest international search engines. Thus, they managed to project themselves towards Cuba and the world.

    Utrera Peña highlighted that Invasor.cu has been characterized since its inception by the special treatment of sports issues: baseball, soccer, and cycling, fundamentally. Its first blow was precisely the transmission, almost live, of the 2004 Athens Olympics, something that no other Cuban website did.

    It is also the only page in the country that offers special coverage of the Cycling Tour of Cuba, which takes place annually. In this way, sport has been a key point to win readers from almost a hundred nations, he said.

    The stability, unity and effort of its collective has allowed it to position itself, for several years, among the best printed publications in the country, endorsed by awards such as Best Informative Ensemble (2005) and Best Comprehensive Provincial Publication (2006), in addition to excel in dealing with economic issues.

    Now, closer to the center of the city of Ciego de Ávila, with a renewed team and proven capacity in the exercise of the revolutionary press, on its 43rd anniversary Invasor assumes the challenge and commitment to maintain its merits while feeling the reality of Ciego de Ávila with the acuity that the circumstances demand.