I always thought the Costa Almería News tried hard to punch above its lowly weight.
In contrast to the ‘freebies’, which cobbled together most stories from the Spanish dailies, invariably churning out warmed up translations of previously rehashed news or press releases, CAN expected to source its own stuff – or at the very least, dig a lot deeper with a topical story than the competition to justify appearing in print.
When I became editor in 2007, I didn’t think that this forgotten and economically depressed corner of Spain would draw much attention from the foreign press.
But the demolition of an elderly British couple’s home by the authorities in 2008 changed all that.
Everyone from the BBC, Bloomberg, Sky and the UK tabloids swooped down on Almería to chronicle their plight, much to the embarrassment of local politicians and even some in the Spanish media, who would have rather kept the international spotlight strictly on the more positive aspects of the property and tourism boom.
Almería, once the choice location for Spaghetti Westerns, had inadvertently lived up to its fictional Wild West image, only now the place had become synonymous with planning abuse, corrupt government officials and naïve property buyers. It was a Spaghetti Western of sorts, in the sense that there was a strong element of human drama in the face of blatant injustice – even though it happened without a six-shooter in sight.
Fortunately, there was a lot more to write about the place. The landscape alone has inspired not just film makers as prestigious as David Lean and Steven Spielberg, but a steady stream of musicians, painters and writers (just don’t get me started on the Palomares nuclear accident – the other reason foreigners flocked to Almería in the 1960s, albeit in US army uniforms).
With that in mind, I have attempted to put together some of the features and opinion columns that I wrote for the paper between 2007 and 2018. Others were penned after the paper’s sad demise in April 2018 and are not necessarily about the province.
I’ve divided the lot into three sections to make my articles more accessible. In other media, you can read features I wrote for other publications – although I still ended up writing about property-related issues. Such is life.
Richard Torné
June 2020
