La heterodoxia de la prensa carlista en la ultra periferia del Estado español: El caso del diario España (1897-1906) de las islas canarias en el contexto del «desastre del 98»

In this article, we propose to unravel the reasons for the long existential cycle, almost a decade (1897-1906), of the “Catholic-traditionalist” newspaper Spain in an information system as refractory to extremism as that of the Canary Islands. To this end, after valuing the temperance of the island’s ideological range in the face of the polarized pluralist system in force in the Iberian Peninsula, we ponder the effects of two successive centers of interest outside the editorial line of the newspaper that, in the context of the so-called “Disaster of 98”, favored its commercialization. We are referring, within the widespread demand for information raised by the Cuban issue, to the arrest and detention by military jurisdiction, a few months after Spain’s defeat against the United States, of the priest José Viera Martín, journalist of the newspaper in question, for his criticism of the Army; and, after this incident, the distancing of the initial ideological commitment and the campaigns launched by its director, Arturo Sarmiento, on the problems of the archipelago. The central sources of the research have been newspapers, consulted at the Museo Canario of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, based on the mandatory content analysis.