Ask why the running of the bulls turns into a global news story every July, and almost everyone gives the same answer: Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises in 1926, and the world showed up with cameras. That answer describes literary history. It does not explain how a photograph taken at La Curva on a Tuesday morning ends up printed in a newspaper on the other side of the world by Tuesday afternoon, or why a Serbian television crew stood on Calle Estafeta for the first time only in the last couple of years. The actual mechanism is a municipal press office in Pamplona, founded on a specific date in the year 2000, that now credentials hundreds of journalists annually from more than a dozen countries, restricts their physical access to a handful of fixed vantage points along the route, and runs its own photography competition judged section by section down the entire course of the run.
This distinction matters because the Hemingway story explains why English-speaking readers first heard about San Fermín. It explains nothing about why the festival keeps generating fresh international coverage a century later, long after any single novel could plausibly be driving new interest on its own. A reader who stops at the novel walks away believing San Fermín’s global reach is a fixed literary inheritance from the 1920s. It is not. As this site has traced in detail, the festival’s path to mass international recognition actually runs through decades of tourism policy and aviation liberalization that had nothing to do with literature. The press side of that story runs on its own separate track, actively managed and measured every year by a city government office that most visitors, and most articles written about the festival, never mention.
What follows draws on the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona’s own accreditation figures and public releases from 2024 through 2026, the accreditation rules published on the city government’s English-language site, and the documentation the Asociación de Periodistas de Navarra publishes for the press office it runs jointly with the city and the Gobierno de Navarra.
The Office Pamplona Didn’t Have Until July 2000
Before July 1, 2000, Pamplona’s city government had no dedicated office coordinating press access to San Fermín. Journalists who wanted to cover the festival made their own arrangements, however they could. The Oficina Internacional de Prensa, the International Press Office known by its Spanish acronym OIP, was created on that specific date to change that, and it has run every year since.
The OIP is based inside the Palacio de Congresos y Auditorio de Navarra, known locally as Baluarte, and it is staffed each festival by a small rotating team of professional journalists drawn from the Asociación de Periodistas de Navarra, the region’s own journalists’ association, which operates the office in partnership with the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona and the Gobierno de Navarra. Staffing has run between six and eight people in recent years: six in 2024, eight in 2026. Beyond the journalists it formally credentials, the OIP also assists roughly fifty additional information professionals a year who show up without accreditation and ask for help anyway.
Its daily responsibilities extend well past handing out laminated passes. OIP staff feed casualty figures from each morning’s Encierro directly to the Gobierno de Navarra’s public data page and to the region’s social media accounts. They attend the press briefings held at the emergency department of the Hospital Universitario de Navarra, and since 2024 they issue a separate accreditation specifically for outlets reporting on the hospital’s response infrastructure or requesting an interview with an injured runner. Every such interview request is routed through the OIP and only proceeds with the patient’s consent. The office is also the first point of contact for any extraordinary incident during the nine days of the festival, fielding calls from press on behalf of the Gobierno de Navarra’s communications service. Across its full history, from 2000 through 2026, the OIP has employed a cumulative total of 179 journalists on its own staff and issued 10,867 individual accreditations to visiting press.
The Numbers Barely Move, Even as the World’s Attention Grows
The scale of international interest looks large in absolute terms and nearly frozen in year-over-year terms, and both facts are true for the same reason: physical space.
In 2026, Pamplona credentialed 677 graphic and communications professionals from 138 media outlets across 13 countries, including France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Turkey, Mexico, and Thailand alongside Spain itself. Of the roughly 2,500 individual event passes issued that year, 407 went specifically to journalists covering the Encierro, 176 to the txupinazo (the festival’s opening rocket ceremony, called el chupinazo in Spanish-language press), and 94 to the closing Pobre de Mí ceremony. The year before, 2025, saw a broadly similar total: around 450 professionals from 140 outlets in 13 countries. In 2024, the city credentialed more than 430 professionals from 135 outlets across 14 countries, with 412 of those specifically covering the Encierro from 130 different outlets, versus 159 people from 40 outlets for the txupinazo and 96 people from 44 outlets for the Pobre de Mí.
Pamplona’s own deputy mayor, Garbiñe Bueno, put the pattern plainly in the city’s 2024 release: the Encierro remains the single event with the greatest media impact of the entire festival. That is a government confirming, in its own words, that international press attention concentrates overwhelmingly on the run itself rather than on San Fermín’s religious processions, its giants and bigheads, or its closing ceremony.
What keeps the raw numbers from climbing much further, even as demand keeps rising, is not a lack of interest. It is square footage. The Ayuntamiento states outright that the physical space available to press along the route, principally the fenced posts on the course itself, the balconies of Casa Seminario overlooking Plaza Consistorial, and the tightly restricted vantage point at the bend where Calle Mercaderes turns into Calle Estafeta at La Curva, is limited enough that the numbers cannot vary much from one year to the next. Applications were still rising 3 to 4 percent annually against that hard ceiling as of 2024, with city officials specifically citing new interest from outlets in Serbia and Georgia as evidence the story has moved well past its traditional English-speaking and French-speaking audience.
What a Press Vest Actually Buys a Journalist
Accreditation is not a single, blanket pass. A journalist applies separately for each event: the txupinazo, the daily Encierro, and the Pobre de Mí. The application window runs from May 15 to June 15 each year, and first-time applicants must submit two required documents to the city, a written justification of their project and intended audience, and a signed statement of responsibility for everyone included in the application. The Ayuntamiento notifies applicants of the outcome on June 18, with a short appeals window on June 18 and 19 and resolutions issued by June 22.
For the Encierro specifically, an accredited journalist collects a distinctive red vest at the OIP, which requires a 20-euro deposit, refunded when the vest is returned. That vest identifies the wearer for encierro coverage only. It does not grant access to the txupinazo or the Pobre de Mí, and it does not reserve a physical spot on the route. Accredited press are directed to designated upright posts along the fenced sections open to media, and once the run ends, that space opens back up to everyone else. Only two locations are treated differently: the Casa Seminario balconies, restricted to outlets covering the entire route and to select freelancers based on their specific project, and the bend into Calle Mercaderes at La Curva itself, access to which the city’s own communication service hand-selects rather than opening to all accredited applicants. Spectator access to balcony views along the route is a separate matter entirely, one that can run visitors as much as €1,000 depending on the balcony, while the press balconies described above are never for sale at any price.
A Photography Prize That Exists Only Because the Press Corps Does
One detail has no real equivalent anywhere else in San Fermín’s press infrastructure. The Asociación de Periodistas de Navarra, through the OIP, runs its own annual juried photography competition, the Concurso Internacional de Fotografía del Encierro, known by its Spanish initials CIFE, and entry is restricted entirely to photographers the city has already accredited to cover the Encierro that year.
Photographers may submit up to three images each, judged separately across all ten fixed sections of the route: Santo Domingo, Plaza Consistorial, Mercaderes before the turn, Mercaderes at La Curva itself, the first and second stretches of Estafeta, the Telefónica bend, the descent into the callejón, the callejón itself, and the Plaza de Toros. The contest’s own rules bar composites, multiple exposures, and any manipulation beyond standard exposure, contrast, and color correction. The overall winning photograph earns its photographer 1,000 euros, with 500 euros for the runner-up, and every one of the ten section winners receives individual recognition, with the full set exhibited publicly at Baluarte. The 2026 edition was the competition’s sixteenth consecutive year and 2025 its fifteenth, meaning it has run annually, without interruption, since roughly 2011, about a decade after the OIP itself opened. The 2026 top prize went to Miguel González for an image shot at Mercaderes, with the runner-up prize going to Sergio Gago for a photograph taken on the second stretch of Estafeta. Visitors without press credentials have their own, more limited set of options for photographing the run, covered separately in this site’s guide to encierro photography vantage points.
From a Single Broadcast Feed to Nine Camera Angles
Television has covered the Encierro live for decades. Javier Izu, the director of RTVE Navarra, the regional arm of Spain’s national public broadcaster, has personally covered the broadcast for 37 consecutive years as of 2026, a run stretching back to the late 1980s, and RTVE’s own online archive of encierro footage, txupinazo coverage, and related reporting extends back to 2008.
For 2026, RTVE significantly expanded its technical operation for the first time in its history, adding a multi-camera option through its RTVE Play streaming service. Alongside the traditional single broadcast feed on La 1, viewers could switch in real time among nine additional fixed cameras positioned at points along the course, including Santo Domingo, Mercaderes, Estafeta, and the entrance to the callejón. RTVE Play also launched a dedicated round-the-clock channel, RTVE Sanfermines, running from the morning of July 6 through midday on July 15, built on its archive dating back to 2008.
Beyond television, the accreditation system feeds the wire services that put a single morning’s run in front of readers worldwide within hours. Major international wire agencies maintain standing photographic coverage of the festival every year. That is the ordinary, unglamorous mechanism by which one accredited photographer’s image of one morning’s run turns up reproduced in newspapers on multiple continents by that same afternoon, a far less mythological explanation than a century-old novel, and one that depends entirely on the accreditation system described above.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many journalists cover San Fermín each year?
In 2026, Pamplona’s International Press Office credentialed 677 graphic and communications professionals from 138 media outlets across 13 countries, the latest figure in a steady rise of international press interest the city government has tracked since the office opened in 2000. That followed similar totals in 2025 (around 450 professionals from 140 outlets) and 2024 (more than 430 professionals from 135 outlets across 14 countries). Most of that access goes specifically to journalists covering the Encierro rather than the festival’s other events.
How do journalists get press credentials for the running of the bulls?
Applications open each year from May 15 to June 15 through the Ayuntamiento de Pamplona, requiring a written project justification and a signed statement of responsibility. Accreditation is notified by June 18, and journalists accredited for the Encierro specifically collect a red identification vest at the International Press Office for a refundable 20-euro deposit. The vest identifies the wearer for encierro coverage only and does not reserve a spot on the route.
Is the running of the bulls broadcast live on television?
Yes. TVE, Spain’s national public broadcaster, has covered the Encierro live for decades through its regional RTVE Navarra operation. Starting in 2026, RTVE Play added a multi-camera streaming option letting viewers choose among nine fixed cameras along the route in addition to the standard broadcast feed, and its online archive of festival footage extends back to 2008.
What is the CIFE photography competition?
CIFE, the Concurso Internacional de Fotografía del Encierro, is an annual competition run by the Asociación de Periodistas de Navarra through the International Press Office, open only to photographers already accredited to cover that year’s Encierro. Entries are judged separately across all ten sections of the route, with a 1,000-euro top prize, a 500-euro runner-up prize, and individual recognition for every section winner. It has run annually since roughly 2011.
Every article on the Encierro blog is authored or reviewed by active bull runners with direct experience in Pamplona.