‘La Agencia’, 80 years of information at the service of society

The 64^th Seminci has screened Agencia EFE’s co-production, which pays homage to all of the agency’s workers around the world

26/10/2019.- “The great mechanism that moves everything, the permanent news.” This is how Seminci director Javier Angulo defined the Agencia EFE’s work during the presentation of the film La Agencia on EFE’s 80^th anniversary.

The event, presented by the festival director, EFE’s president Fernando Garea, and EFE’s correspondent in Libya Javier Martín, was attended by numerous dignitaries of regional and local politics, such as the Government Delegate in Castile and León Mercedes Martín, the vice president of the Junta of Castile and León Francisco Igea, the regional secretary of Podemos Pablo Fernández, the mayor of Valladolid Óscar Puente, and the spokeswoman for the municipal’s People’s Party (PP) in the Valladolid City Council.

The event was also attended by journalists such as director of Institutional Relations of El Norte de Castilla and Grupo Vocento assistant manager Carlos Aganzo, and Jesús Fonseca, Agencia EFE’s first correspondent in Africa, specifically in Senegal.

Javier Angulo, who is a journalist by profession, stressed Agencia EFE’s importance, which “was always a role model,” and said that when he first laid hands on the film and watched it, he was moved because it shows “journalism’s back room. Screening it is a pleasure and a luxury.”

La Agencia is “a tribute to EFE’s journalists who work all over the world, sacrificing their personal lives in order to tell the news,” explains EFE director Fernando Garea. Through eight stories of correspondents living in eight different corners of the planet, the film aims to lift them out of anonymity and “give them a face.” Their personal stories are linked to major current global issues, such as the Mexican immigration crisis, the melting of glaciers, the African Ebola epidemic, or the Middle East wars, highlighting the importance of being on site, conveying true and good-quality information.

On EFE’s 80^th anniversary, “we want to portray the present and foresee the future,” said Garea, adding that EFE “is always there, doing a thorough, meticulous, and straightforward job.”

Representing all the Agencia EFE’s workers around the world, correspondent in Libya Javier Martín visited Valladolid to take part in the film’s presentation. “I have been working in the agency for 20 years, and have been, and continue to be, very fortunate to be able to build my career in the best journalism school in Spain.”

Martín said that journalists learn how to do their job “like artisans do, working day after day.” He recalled his family’s past linked to journalism in Salamanca. “Growing up, I never dared to ask where TV presenters got their information from, and when I started working at EFE I found out the answer.”

According to him, Agencia EFE’s importance is “being where the news is, while also being a public medium,” since “information is a right, and the best way to get information is through public media,” he concluded.