Happy holidays and expect greater improvement from Progreso
Al’s Loupe
Happy holidays and expect greater improvement from Progreso
By Alvaro F. Fernandez
alvaro@progresoweekly.com
With this our last issue of 2010, we’d like to wish all of our readers and everyone who makes Progreso Weekly/Semanal possible the happiest of holidays. I propose we work together for a better 2011.
The coming year should be interesting. And Progreso Weekly/Semanal is part of that interest I express – especially if you’re from Miami. Why? As the years go by our little publication that could becomes more important. And if you live in Miami, part of the sadness of 2011 may be the continued decay of The Miami Herald as a major newspaper in this town. I say this with sorrow, because although we criticize The Herald often (which it deserves), we also recognize its value in this community. I write this knowing that if The Miami Herald survives next year, it may be because of a miracle; from what I hear and understand, it may become a strictly internet publication by the end of 2011.
And if that is the case, Progreso Weekly/Semanal, which has been chugging along over the years, should take a quantitative leap forward in importance in the South Florida market. This will not happen just because we wish it, though. There are plans to shore up Progreso Weekly (our English version) in the coming months.
What do I mean? Simply that there is very valuable information coming out of Cuba daily, for example, that is simply found in Progreso Semanal (our Spanish version) because we don’t translate on a daily basis. We are hoping to solve that problem soon making us the most important source of information coming out of Cuba in the Miami area – and I wouldn’t doubt that it’s also the rest of the country. Our reporting and opinion pieces coming out of the island are second to none. And if you’ve followed closely, our people working in Havana and other parts of Cuba have been ahead of the curve on the dynamic process that is Cuba today.
There are also other things in the works that I am not at liberty to divulge just yet, but again, plans are to make Progreso Weekly and Semanal that much more visible in Miami in the coming months, making us an even more important medium than we already are. For those who doubt our growth and our importance, our numbers bear us out. Without considering the month of December, which we have yet to finish, up until November 30th of 2010, Progreso Weekly/Semanal had received 34,341,526 hits during the 11 month period. Those may not be record numbers, but they are serious and something to be proud of. Especially when you consider that we keep growing – in 2009, during the 12-month period, Progreso Weekly/Semanal received a total of 22,047, 895 hits.
I will allow the numbers to speak for themselves.
But those numbers would not be possible without the help and hard work of everyone who works to make Progreso Weekly/Semanal possible. Our limited staff is not only highly professional, but they are also some of the finest journalists here and in Cuba. And a special thanks goes out to all who contribute economically to make this project so successful: you the readers, Marazul Charters, XAEL Charters and ABC Charters. Without their help we would be unable to function.
Happy holiday and let’s make sure 2011 is better than 2010!
