VASP, owned by businessman Marco Galinha, majority shareholders of Diário de Notícias, reaffirmed this Thursday, December 18th, “its mission of continuity, efficiency and proximity, critical factors to ensure accessibility, pluralism and territorial cohesion in access to information, a right that is constitutionally enshrined”, recalling that it is something “for which VASP fights every day, even in the need to rethink the operation and new logistical models that allow the viability and continuity of this mission”. The information was conveyed in a statement sent to newsrooms.
Shortly after the company announced that it could cut distribution routes within the country, which risks leaving 8 districts without access to printed media, VASP assumes “the increased responsibility associated with its current position as the only national press distributor in Portugal, not because it is a monopolistic company, but because it is, in fact, the only surviving company in the sector, as it was left to fill the void resulting from the bankruptcy of all other distributors, with serious consequences for press publishers, facts that make operational resilience and dialogue with publishers, retailers, public and private institutions, and also with the Government, is a permanent priority”.
To mark National Press Day, VASP also guarantees that it joins “the sectoral reflection promoted in Pombal and renews its commitment to the continuous modernization of services, the sustainability of operations and the protection of regular access to the paper press, particularly in lower density territories, also saluting all those who are part of the Portuguese press ecosystem, from journalists, points of sale, printers and readers, because everyone is part of the constitutional process that guarantees access to the daily press, a process that that VASP is proud to carry, every day”.