Thirty-two years ago a baby was born that I called The Reporter, but later, at my journalist father’s insistence, I renamed it El Reportero, because it was born as an English publication, and became the bilingual newspaper that you all know now.
There was no internet yet, and unlike today’s technology where pages are created on the computer and sent to the print shop by email, one had to bring the finished art in person.
Before, I would print the pages on a printer, and with scissors I would cut out the content and paste it on cardboard, like putting together a puzzle. It was then taken to the printing shop, where the prepress technician took the photos and created the plates, which are (still) placed on the rotary press – and then the bundle of newspapers comes out already tied, ready for distribution.
The first time I went to the printing press – one that was on 16th Street in SF – to pick up the first edition of The Reportero, I passed by Mission Street, and I was on my way to the University. I was eager to start distributing – the 10,000 copies I had just picked up – at SF State University.
I stopped for the traffic light at 25th Street. To the left was the famous Taquería, and next to it was the newly opened Casa Blanca Taqueria, owned by Blanca and Barnes Gomez, and now gone.
My car, which was a two-seater, a white Pontiac GT, didn’t have room to hold all the copies, so I spread them out in front and on the hood of the car.
What is that?” Barnes asked me curiously.
“It’s my newspaper,” I replied excitedly. “I come from the printer.”
Immediately I got out stopping traffic in double parking in the middle of the street – to hand out some copies of the newspaper to him and his friends.
When I got into my car, I said to myself with great enthusiasm: “is a community newspaper!”
What you see now, dear readers, is the fruit of a passion that I already had in me since my birth, and that I suddenly discovered unintentionally. Simply, I heard a phrase that someone said: “journalism has the highest ethics of all professions”, and with that reference I chose to choose the career of journalism to that of law, since I had already dealt with that field when I graduated with a certificate in Paralegal Studies at one of those non-certified colleges out there that offer certificates without much value.
I hope to continue telling you my story and that of El Reportero in future editions. But today I thank God for the energy deposited in me to reach these 32 years that the newspaper is fulfilling, and to the companies that have sponsored us.
