Lucrecia Hevia, the committed voice of Andalusian journalism, dies.

In 2013, a journalist with Asturian roots who had already made Seville her home, Andalusia her banner, and the journalism profession a more friendly profession, taught many of her colleagues a lesson. In the midst of the media crisis, Lucrecia Hevia (Madrid, 1976 – Seville, 2025) pledged her (meager, like all journalists') personal assets to stave off job insecurity and, at 37, founded the Andalusian edition of the online newspaper elDiario.es , a title that had been founded in Madrid about six months earlier. Since then, she has been its owner and editorial director, but also its manager, editor, and columnist—a rarity in a media outlet.

And since then, Hevia, one of the very few women in management positions in a media outlet in Spain (let alone in Andalusia), has become an example for the journalistic profession, always focused on the defense of Andalusia against information centralism, feminism, and democratic memory, three fundamental values ​​that have underpinned her information project and for which she has received numerous awards.

This Monday, she died in Seville at the age of 49 from cancer, which she battled with the dignity and discretion that have always marked her personality. "Lucre leaves us the best example that to be a good journalist, you have to be a good person. Her smile, her commitment, and her love for life will always be with us," were the words dedicated to her by the Seville Press Association on its X social media account, from which a cascade of condolences has erupted from colleagues, public representatives, social and union groups, artists, and many friends. Because, truly, Lucrecia Hevia leaves us faced with the inexplicable pain of premature deaths and the feeling of injustice at thinking that death always preys on good people, great professionals, and people of integrity. Ultimately, Lucrecia says goodbye without enemies and with an outpouring of affection. “So much love and being powerless against death,” journalist and poet Juan José Téllez recalled on Monday, making these verses by César Vallejo his own.

With more than 25 years of experience in the profession, before arriving in Seville, Lucrecia Hevia had graduated in Journalism from the Complutense University and had developed her professional career in the Asturian newspaper La Nueva España , in the national and Andalusian edition of 20 Minutos , and in the magazine Andalucía Investiga , holding various positions of responsibility and reporting on local, cultural, technological, scientific and political information.

At the helm of the Andalusian edition of elDiario.es , Lucrecia Hevia has spent the last 12 years, “always in close collaboration with those responsible for the national edition: Ignacio Escolar, Juanlu Sánchez, Néus Tomàs, Toño Fraguas, Marco Schwartz… and with the entire team from the central and regional/local editions. And always thinking about how to contribute to the social needs of Andalusia and therefore Spain, that is, European and global. Yes, because the internationalist and contemporary pulse guided her steps in relation to Andalusia. For Lucre, this land, with more inhabitants than 13 of the 27 countries in the European Union, cannot be considered a moment,” wrote the Sevillian journalist and writer María Iglesias .

Her career was recognized with numerous awards. In 2022, she received the UGT Fighters Award for her defense of equality in the press. In 2023, the Seville Press Association awarded her the Communication Award for her work at the helm of a media outlet that has managed to combine quality, independence, and commitment. And in 2024, the Government Delegation in Andalusia awarded her the Plaza de España Award for her defense of democratic values. “With her departure, Andalusian journalism loses a brave, lucid, and deeply human voice. But her legacy—made of words, principles, and community—will live on in every story told honestly, in every media outlet that champions the truth, and in every journalist who understands their profession as an act of democratic responsibility,” her colleagues at elDiario.es emphasized. “We in the newsroom are devastated. She was an exceptional journalist whom we will miss terribly,” the outlet's director, Ignacio Escolar, added in X.