123 years ago, a decision was taken to launch O Heraldo, a Portuguese daily newspaper in Goa and a century and two decades later, the paper still exists, albeit as an English edition since the year 1983.
It was Professor Aleixo Clemente Messias Gomes who took that step, battling the odds to ensure that O Heraldo would see the light of day. Incidentally, O Heraldo was the first Portuguese-language daily newspaper within all the colonies of Portugal.
In the years 1944 to 1972, the paper’s editor and the one who set the tone for the rest of O Heraldo’s history until his death, was Amadeu Prazeres de Costa, a writer par excellence.
According to Amadeu’s son, Engineer Cristo Prazeres de Costa, O Heraldo, which was founded by Cristo´s great grand-uncle Aleixo Messias Gomes, was the first Portuguese daily newspaper in Goa. Before the first edition was published on January 22, 1900, in Nova Goa (today’s Panjim) the other Portuguese newspapers existing then were weeklies or biweeklies.
While there were other Portuguese dailies that emerged thereafter, only O Heraldo has lasted since then, a testament with the bond it has shared with its readers spanning generations and generations.
However, back then, everything about newspapers; be it how it was printed or what the readers wanted to know was different to the present age of digital media and instant news.
For perspective, besides the newspaper, the only other mediums of broadcasting the news were the radio and telegrams.
A newspaper subscriber would get the edition by post and people would wait eagerly to get their hands on the paper and skim through the pages.
“In those days, once the newspaper arrived at someone’s house, especially in the villages, they would quickly read it as they would share it with their neighbours. After the family members were done with the paper, someone would be called to hurriedly go and give it to the neighbour’s family and then they would give it to the next neighbour. Everyone who lived nearby was known to each other so sharing the paper like this was the routine,” said Cristo, who has had a special relationship with O Heraldo.
During a conversation with Cristo at his house in Benaulim, where he has stored original copies of the paper, he recalled anecdotes after anecdotes of what it was like to come out with a paper in the mid 1950s and how he helped his father with the newspaper’s functioning at a young age.
“I was around 12 years old. My father would write the editorial article and he would send it with me to O Heraldo’s small office located opposite the municipal garden in Panjim. Our house was behind the post office in São Tomé and so I would run to the office as we had deadlines to meet and the printing process was time consuming as it was all done by hand,” said Cristo, whose face lit up as he wandered down memory lane.
Without any computers or the internet that is so vital for the entire newspaper printing process today, in that era, they had to utilise basic letterpress printing where each column of the article was composed block by block and each block had to be corrected after proof printing.
For Cristo, the thrill was in getting to read the news before anyone else. More so, during the mid 1930s, censorship was started in Goa by the Salazar’s regime and each and every news item had to be cleared first by a pre-press proof. This had led to conflicts between the editors of newspapers and the Goan Director of the “Portuguese Censorship Services Regulations” using his dreaded ‘blue pencil’.
“My father would write in such a way that one had to read between the lines to understand what was happening. Very often, I used to take the articles to the censorship authorities and bring them back to my father. Occasionally in the late 1940s, my father would deliberately leave a blank patch on the page where criticism of the authorities in an article was mentioned so that the readers would know this was censored. One day, a person travelled from Margao to the Panjim office just to find out what had to be dropped and why,” Cristo recalled.
“Amadeu was very clever and he knew how to write during the time of censorship,” said 92-year-old Rafael Viegas, who has chronicled and remembers Goa’s history as if it happened yesterday.
Rafael’s father, the famous journalist Alvaro Viegas, was a contributor for O Heraldo in 1921, after which he joined another publication. During his short stint with O Heraldo, he covered the Congress Provincial meetings where presentations were made and discussions were held about developments and policies affecting Goa.
“The papers were very important. We would all read it at home and we would get to know about the happenings of the World War II from the paper,” Rafael recalled, during a conversation with O Heraldo from his house in Curtorim, where he maintains a library of his personal collection of books, publications, magazines and the like, some of which are as old as him.
He added that it was not just the world news or political-related developments in Goa or Portugal that would be of interest to the readers, but also local updates in the community, which was a big part of what the pages were about.
“There was a lot of news about the people of Goa in those days. There were reports of weddings, which even had details of the menu. If a child was born, you would read it in the news. If someone died, there would be an obituary. The results of Lyceum exams and medical school would be in the papers. If someone had got a good education qualification from a college or had returned from Africa it would be reported. At times, these reports would also help these young men to get marriage proposals,” the ever-smiling Rafael chuckled.
Other readers also point out that the paper covered a wide spectrum of serious topics too. The headlines revolved around Goa’s economic status such as business families from Goa being allowed to open mines by the Portuguese government, then key decisions taken by the local comunidades or municipalities that would impact their respective regions or big updates from the Portuguese parliament or judiciary that affected Goa and Goans at large.
There were also hard-hitting as well as heart-warming editorials about the aspirations of the people of Goa, warnings about the State suffering due to the large-scale migration. One of the earliest contributors, Luís de Menezes Bragança, who was a big part of the paper’s journey post inception, wrote fiercely about social justice, autonomy for Goa and the identity of the local populace.
O Heraldo also covered India’s freedom struggle where interviews of Ram Manohar Lohia were published following his visit to Goa. The opinion of Subash Chandra Bose and the path he was taking was also reported greatly.
What’s more, through the paper, none other than Mahatma Gandhi, wrote to the Governor of Goa, Jose Ferreira Bossa would reply to Gandhi through letters published in the paper.
Besides the coverage about what was happening in India, world news was still an aspect of the paper that the readers cared about.
Editor Amadeu would have a Sunday editorial called ‘The week gone by, review of international events’, which ran for a long time and was an extremely popular section of the newspaper.
Later on, columnist and writer, Jose Maria Miranda would help O Heraldo with reports about developments in the world when he was working in Panjim in 1973. Jose Maria would listen to the Radio post work, take down notes and then head the O Heraldo office to give them the snippets that had to be published.
He pointed out that the papers also would also get the major world reports from news agencies and that his role was limited to picking up interesting updates, which would appeal to the readers.
Jose Maria’s family also has had a special connection with the paper as his elder brother late Zito Miranda, worked for O Heraldo for many years and would regularly provide news and editorial content for the paper.
Jose Maria, who still writes for O Heraldo, has seen the paper evolve over the years, feels strongly about local issues and has often come to the streets to take part in protests about the causes he supports. He believes that the papers have a role in public discourse and that similar to how it was in the past, the people get their chance to voice their opinions on current affairs through the paper.
“What newspapers have to say is very important as it has an impact on the readers and how they react to the news. That has not changed. I was quite young during the times of the Portuguese newspapers but I was there during the transition period where you now have English newspapers,” said Jose Maria.
Honorato Velho, who has been deeply involved in the process of education in Goa, spoke keenly on why newspapers should carry the opinions of Goans and recalled how he would follow opinions expressed in newspapers when he was younger too.
Speaking to O Heraldo from his beautifully maintained ancestral house in Benaulim, Velho recalled in detail an editorial that had been published decades ago about a particular event. He remembered how it had led to opposing views getting published in O Heraldo and a rival newspaper, which went on for some time but what piqued his curiosity was the manner in which opinions were elucidated through this debate.
When asked about his thoughts about the Portuguese O Heraldo, Velho said “it was incisive”
Holding the present edition of O Heraldo, Velho, added that “I always had a habit of reading the newspapers thoroughly and that back in the day, they were the lifeline of society as it was the major source of news and information.”
He added that “the quality of the Portuguese language in Goa was impeccable and that the newspapers of Goa were received and read in Portugal as well.”
“To understand what the Portuguese newspapers were about, you have to also understand the context of the times in which these newspapers came out. For example, who were the editors and how they expressed their views, what the readers wanted to read and what the general opinions of various sections of society were,” said Velho.