The influential founding editor of Spain’s second-biggest newspaper, El Mundo, stepped down last Thursday after a decline in circulation and a series of revelations of alleged corruption in Spain’s Partido Popular governing party.
Love him or hate him-and, as a former colleague, I fall into no-man’s land- the Spanish journalist Pedro.J Ramirez has earned a deserving place as a significant figure not just of the Spanish political and cultural scene, but as a notable member of the international media fraternity.
His resignation from El Mundo, the newspaper he has edited for many years marks a potential cross-roads for the future of the Spanish newspaper industry of incalculable consequences. There must be now a question mark over the future of El Mundo, so dominated by his personality as Spanish newspapers generally struggle to survive amidst dramatic falls in circulation and advertising revenue.
The career of Pedro J as he is widely known has personified the twists and turns, peaks and troughs of Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy, making as many enemies as friends along the way. His career reminds me that anyone who sticks their head above the parapet politically in Spain seems destined to be a protagonist but risks also becoming a victim of intolerance and intrigue, the tragic consequence of a divided nation lacking any concept of the common good.
The long Youtubed and manically twittered farewell to his newsroom was typical of the man and the journalist who has courted publicity most of his professional life, partly because of arrogance, but also because of a deeply felt passion about the power of the media as a potential fourth estate.
Without a jacket and sporting his characteristic traditional newspaper braces, Pedro J. held up copies of past front pages that for better or for worse exposed, not always with accuracy or without political subjectivity, provoked debate, and often defined outcomes.
Raised in a middle-class family from La Rioja, he received his primary and secondary education at a catholic school in Logroño before studying journalism at the University of Navarra, where he also began a degree in Law.
He graduated with a degree in Journalism in 1973- two years before Franco’s death and a time when Spanish culture, newspapers included, were beginning to make significant strides in breaking through years of political censorship.
Pedro J. left for the United States- where he worked as a lecturer in Contemporary Spanish Literature at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania. During this time he experienced the decisive year in which an investigation by the Washington Post led to the downfall of the presidency of Richard Nixon.
Hugely impressed by the outcome of the Watergate case, Pedro J. interviewed the editor of The Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, for the magazine La Actualidad Española, along with other important figures at the time in US media.
From then on, Pedro J. was to hold not just the Washington Post but other American and British newspapers, like the Guardian and the Financial Times, in the highest esteem for the organisation of their news desks, the professionalism of their investigative reporting and their courageous resistance to political influence, epitomised in the FT’s motto, ‘Beyond Fear or Favour’, standards which he did not always stick to, however much he claimed to aspire to them.
From 1975 to 1980, when other journalists were focusing on bringing out El Pais, the first major daily newspaper of the democratic post-Franco era, Pedro J. worked at the long established conservative newspaper ABC, writing the Sunday section on political analysis called Crónica de la Semana.
Nevertheless Pedro J. soon formed part of the widening cultural and political landscape as Franco receded into history, and democracy became accepted by a majority of Spaniards. On 17 June 1980, aged only 28, he was appointed editor of the newspaper Diario 16. While initially part of a new stable of Post-Franco and new journalism, the newspaper had lost its way and appeal to new generation of readers, and was then selling barely 15,000 copies and threatened with closure. However, within two years, under his editorship the newspaper had reached a circulation of 100,000 copies, and five years after that it would attain 150,000.
Pedro J. took a resolute editorial stance in defence of Spain’s nascent democracy and against those behind the attempted right wing coup d’état on 23 February 1981. A year later, on the first anniversary of the coup attempt, he was expelled from the Court of Justice where the trial was held against those involved, as supporters of the coup refused to appear in court as long as the he was present. The Military Justice Supreme Council revoked his credentials and forced him to leave the courtroom.
This incident led to a historic resolution issued by the Constitutional Court, dismissing the decision by the Military Justice and proclaiming readers’ rights to information for the first time since the establishment of democracy.
During the late 1980’s and 1990’s Pedro J’s professionalism and politics, as the publications director of the newspaper’s parent company Grupo 16, became the subject of increasing controversy and he was sued several times for libel on account of his often sensationalist coverage of high profile events, not least the illegal shoot-to-kill policy against ETA suspects carried out during the socialist government of Felipe Gonzalez.
On 23 October 1989, seven months after his dismissal, he founded El Mundo, along with three high-ranking executives from Grupo 16: Alfonso de Salas, Balbino Fraga and Juan González. More than 50 Diario 16 journalists quit their jobs and joined the project. The parent group of the British newspaper The Guardian was one of its first shareholders, and the Italian daily Corriere della Sera invested a year later.
As Editor of El Mundo, Pedro J. immediately set the political agenda during the 1990’s, outspoken in its allegation of high level government and business corruption, and with a series of further exposes of the shoot-to-kill GAL plot that led to the murder of more than two dozen Basque activists, mainly in the south of France. These revelations led to trials and convictions, including those of the former Interior Minister José Barrionuevo and his associate Rafael Vera.
In October 1997, a secret video recording was widely circulated anonymously, showing a somewhat eccentric sexual encounter between Pedro J. and a woman . Pedro J. did not resign, claiming he was being attacked over his coverage of state-funded anti-ETA death squads named GAL. Six people were convicted for violating his privacy. The sentence, upheld by the Supreme Court, established that the purpose of the entrapment had been to change the editorial stance of El Mundo.
Less known is the impact the scandal had in undermining discreet moves by the Financial Times to enter into a media partnership with El Mundo, with senior executives of the British newspaper group , then shareholders in the Spanish publishing company Grupo Recoletos, fearing that its brand might be tarnished by association with Pedro J.
In 2004 the FT sold its majority shareholding in Grupo Recoletos, twelve years after the formation of the Spanish group from the merger of Marca, the sports publisher, and Expansión. The FT’s parent company Pearson, which had held stakes in Marca and Expansión, had become majority shareholder in the new group in 1994 and moved to 99 per cent control in 1999.
In 2007, Unedisa, the publishing company of El Mundo -already widely controlled by the RCS group, owner of Corriere della Sera– acquired 100% of the shares in Grupo Recoletos, a leader in specialised press in Spain. As a result of this operation, Pedro J. Ramírez, as General Editorial Director, was put in charge of content published in newspapers such as Marca, Expansión and Diario Médico; magazines including Telva and Actualidad Económica, and the television channel Televisión Digital Veo TV.
By then Pedro J. had led El Mundo into further disputed political territory, supporting the centre-right PP government of Jose Maria Aznar , (1996-2000), before opposing it during its second term over Spain’s support for the US led invasion Iraq.
In more recent years I was among those who publicly challenged Pedro J’s professionalism over his insistence-and El Mundo’s reporting-that ETA was behind the Madrid bombings of March 2004 which killed 191 people and wounded 1,800. Having covered the bombings myself for the FT, I believed his newspapers’ investigation into the terrorist plot lacked rigour ,played to a domestic political agenda and tainted sources, and ignored compelling evidence that ETA was not involved but that Islamists were.
In truth I have never found it easy to pigeon hole Pedro J. who I’ve generally considered a personable and often courageous rogue. As an occasional contributor to El Mundo myself under his editorship, I admired his continuing faith in the ability of good journalism to press for the truth, even if his brash style and El Mundo’s reporting seemed often to share the values of a tabloid rather than a serious broadsheet.
Pedro J. track record is impressive. It can boast of outspoken denunciations of alleged corruption in the governments of opposing parties, of the failure of the Spanish monarchy, and of the undemocratic aspects of Basque and Catalan nationalism, while never pretending him to be a saint despite his conservative Catholic education, and the power that the Catholic Church still has in Spain.
In the end it was Pedro J. reputation as a political maverick which meant he was considered a liability by too many vested interests, leaving him too few influential friends prepared to defend him.
Officially Pedro J. has reached agreement with his employers that will allow him to continue as a contributor and adviser. He also hinted last week that if he was finally pushed he was prepared to set up a new media venture, likely to be digital. I hope and trust he will get the money for it.
His resignation comes against the background of poor financial results at El Mundo which have dragged down its parent company, the Italian publishing group RCS, which owns over 96 percent of Unidad Editorial. In 2011, the Spanish consortium announced losses of 243 million euros, which rose to 526 million the following year. Only a cash injection from RCS prevented the newspaper from folding.
Speculation has it that El Mundo may face closure or merger with other newspapers like La Razon and ABC in what would many analysts see a long overdue rationalisation of the Spanish newspaper industry.
But as a youthful 61-turning 62 next month-, Pedro J. this week was in characteristically defiant mood as he confirmed his resignation as editor. He is not unlikely to disappear from the limelight- nor should he be allowed to. No serious democracy should be allowed to silence him. Te deseo suerte, Pedro J.
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