Tubal Páez Hernández received today the José Martí National Journalism Prize for lifetime achievement at the Memorial bearing the name of the Apostle, dedicating the honor to the Cuban Revolution, to the Cuban people, and to his colleagues in the press.

Yuniasky Crespo Baquero, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and head of its Ideological Department, and Ricardo Ronquillo Bello, president of the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC), presented the distinguished award to Páez in a ceremony described as emotionally charged yet austere, as the current context demands.

The honorary president of UPEC — an organization he led for two decades — addressed those in attendance with the following reflection: "If I were to summarize my professional life, the common thread was to report with objectivity and to defend, with the weapons of truth and ethics, revolutionary ideas and the premise, drawn from Cuba's socialist experience, that it is possible to build a more just world for all, in peace."

"Today, in the face of the aggression of the great destroyer of lives and livelihoods, the Cuban press has had to restructure its print publications and develop even further the creativity and talent of its teams across digital platforms, social networks, and other non-in-person formats," he continued. "This is happening precisely at a moment when the people are demonstrating a moving capacity for resistance and demanding from us, consistent with their authority, the essential elements needed to assess and act in the face of the great daily challenges."

Páez Hernández further stated: "We revolutionaries rise each day prepared to confront with energy the negligence and the affront, and the complex circumstances besieging the economies of countries like ours — countries that were stripped of their resources and rights more than once — as well as the blockade specially designed to punish rebellious Cuba for its audacious determination to remain free, independent, and sovereign, just miles from the empire."

At the central event marking Cuban Press Day, observed on March 14, the Juan Gualberto Gómez Prizes for work of the year were also awarded to journalists who performed commendable work during the evaluated period. The innovation prize of the Sixth National Virtual Press Festival was presented to Ideas Multimedios, the Cuban News Agency, Palante, Radio Sancti Spíritus, and the Escambray publishing house — all institutions from the land of the Yayabo River.

In the presence of Ana María Mari Machado, Vice President of the National Assembly of People's Power; Inés María Chapman, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic; and other prominent Cuban intellectuals, Luis Morlote Rivas, Deputy Head of the Ideological Department of the Communist Party's Central Committee, extended congratulations to Cuban journalists on the anniversary of the newspaper Patria — founded by José Martí, Cuba's National Hero, on March 14, 1892.

Morlote Rivas remarked that the transformation of Cuba's communications system, following the enactment of the Social Communications Law, demands that media outlets modernize without losing their essential character. "It is not a matter of following trends, but of placing technology at the service of the people and achieving technological sovereignty," he affirmed.

He also addressed the need for young journalists entering newsrooms to arrive equipped with tools that allow for greater creativity within the context of the cognitive warfare that dominates today's global information landscape.