Basque journalist Oihane Mateos dies at 45 after leading EITB digital news shift

Oihane Mateos, the Basque journalist who led the digital news operation at EITB and helped steer its Orain service, died on Aug. 8 at age 45, the broadcaster announced. EITB's notice did not disclose a cause of death.

Her career was closely tied to the same media organization she would later help reshape. Mateos, who was from Ibarra, began at Euskadi Irratia as an intern. She went on to work across Euskal Telebista, serving as a reporter and presenter on the news programs “Gaur Egun” and “Teleberri.” She also directed “De Boca en Boca” on ETB2.

That background placed her on both sides of a major change in journalism. She knew the rhythms of radio and scheduled television news before taking responsibility for a digital operation built around websites, social platforms and mobile habits. In 2022, Mateos was appointed head of Digital News at EITB, overseeing the organization's news output on the web and social networks.

EITB credits her with putting significant effort into the transformation of its newsroom and says Orain, its digital news service, began its development under her leadership. The project gradually expanded the ways the broadcaster reached audiences beyond traditional radio and television.

One of the clearest examples came in December 2023 with the launch of WhatsApp Orain in Basque. EITB described the service as immediate and selective, with video and images playing a central role. It was designed for mobile use and aimed especially at people under 30. Mateos appeared at the launch in her role as head of Digital News, alongside other members of EITB's news team.

The initiative later received outside recognition. In June 2024, Orain Berriak won a Platinum Customer Experience Award for best IT project in Public Administration. Mateos and EITB systems director Iñaki Regidor accepted the award in Madrid.

The next stage arrived in June 2025, when EITB launched the Orain platform. The service brought together news in Basque and Spanish with video, photos, streaming and mobile-oriented formats. At the launch, EITB said its broader digital community had grown beyond four million users. Mateos took part in the presentation as the executive responsible for digital news.

For readers outside Spain, her career offers a compact picture of how regional public-service journalism has been changing. A reporter can no longer be understood only by a program or time slot. Newsrooms now have to decide how a story appears in a television bulletin, on a website, inside a messaging app and across social platforms — often at the same time.

Mateos's path moved through each of those stages. She started in radio, became a familiar television journalist and ended up leading the digital infrastructure through which a new generation encountered the same newsroom.

EITB's farewell emphasized both her long connection to the organization and her role in changing it. At 45, her death cuts short a career still deeply involved in that transition. The work she leaves behind is visible not only in archived broadcasts, but in the digital news products that became part of EITB's everyday service.