Pedro J. Ramírez

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Pedro José Ramírez Codina
Born March 26, 1952
Logroño

Pedro José Ramírez Codina (Logroño, 1952), Spanish, more often known as Pedro J. Ramírez, is a Spanish journalist. When he was appointed to manage Diario 16 at the age of 28, he became the democracy’s youngest director of a national newspaper. In 1989 he founded the newspaper El Mundo, managing it continuously since then, making him the dean of directors of Spanish newspapers. He has collaborated with several radio and television programs -and continues to do so- and has published a dozen books.

He’s divorced and lives with the designer Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada since 1986. He has three children.

Contents

[edit] Youth and Education

He was raised in a middle-class family from La Rioja and for 13 years he received his primary and secondary education at the Hermanos Maristas school in Logroño. He studied journalism at the University of Navarra, where he also began a degree in Law. While there, he directed the university’s Theater Group, participating in several national and international festivals. He graduated with a degree in Journalism in 1973 with a thesis titled “Towards Informative Theater”. Upon finishing his degree, he earned a position as Professor of Contemporary Spanish Literature at the Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania, living in the United States during the decisive year of the Watergate case. He interviewed the director of The Washington Post, Ben Bradlee, for the magazine La Actualidad Española, along with other important figures at the time in U.S. media. Lebanon Valley College presented him with an “honorary degree” in Humanities.

[edit] Professional Beginning

From 1975 to 1980 he worked at the newspaper ABC, writing the Sunday section on political analysis called Crónica de la Semana. On June 17, 1980, having just turned 28 years old, he was appointed director of the newspaper Diario 16, whose circulation barely surpassed 15,000 copies, which almost led to its closure. Not only was that tragic possibility avoided, but two years later the newspaper had reached a circulation of 100,000 copies, and five years after that it would attain 150,000, according to figures of the OJD, the Office of Circulation Verification.

The most important event of the time was coverage of the attempted coup d’état on February 23, 1981. Diario 16 maintained the firmest and most resolute editorial stance against those leading the coup. On February 23, 1982, on the first anniversary of the coup attempt, Pedro J. Ramírez was expelled from the Court of Justice where the trial was held against those involved, as supporters of the coup were not allowed to appear in court as long as the director of Diario 16 was present.

Yielding to this blackmail, 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.

In 1986 he was also named Publications Director for the entire Grupo 16. He was elected president of the Spanish Committee of the International Press Institute (IPI), and in September 1988 he formed part of the organization’s global Executive Committee. On March 8, 1989 he was dismissed as director of Diario 16 after Felipe González unsuccessfully pressured him in front of witnesses to stop publishing investigations that tied his government to the GAL (Anti-terrorist Liberation Groups), and after being publicly threatened by the Interior Minister, José Luis Corcuera, warning him that “very soon he may no longer be the newspaper’s director.”

[edit] Director of EL MUNDO

On October 23, 1989, seven months after his dismissal for political motives, he founded the newspaper 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 British newspaper The Guardian was one of its first shareholders and the Italian daily Corriere della Sera formed part of its capital a year later.

In the 1990’s, EL MUNDO stood out for its investigations on corruption scandals carried out by successive socialist governments, namely for its exclusive exposure of the socialist government’s implication in the GAL plot that led to the murder of more than two dozen people in the south of France. All of these revelations were later supported by strict legal sentences, such as the one convicting the Interior Minister, José Barrionuevo, and his associate, Rafael Vera, for the kidnapping of Segundo Marey; the one convicting general Galindo and the civil governor of Guipuzcoa, Julen Elgorriaga, for the murder of Lasa and Zabala, and the one sentencing Rafael Vera himself for illegal appropriation of funds pertaining to the Ministry.

Felipe González repeatedly blamed the director of EL MUNDO for his removal from power in 1996, insulting him on many occasions during rallies and other public events.

In 1997, Pedro J. Ramírez was appointed president of the Commission for Freedom of Expression of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), and for many years traveled to countries including China, Algeria, Turkey and Venezuela to request the freedom of imprisoned journalists and the repeal of oppressive laws against the media.

EL MUNDO supported the Aznar government in general terms during its first term (1996-2000), while openly confronting it, however, during its second term when it decided to support the Bush policy in Iraq. On the eve of the Azores summit, Pedro J. Ramírez published one of his routine Sunday letters, titled “One Hundred Reasons against the Invasion of Iraq.”

Since Zapatero’s rise to power, EL MUNDO has pushed forward with the investigation of the March 11 massacre, discovering significant flaws in the official version. From the editorial perspective, it has been against negotiations with ETA and the new Catalonian Statute, which led to votes cast for the Partido Popular and the small party headed by Rosa Díez during the general elections held on March 9, 2008.

The Office of Circulation Verification (OJD) confirmed that during its first year EL MUNDO obtained a circulation of more than 100,000 copies, while in 2007 it surpassed the mark of 335,000. According to the Study on General Media (EGM), EL MUNDO has more than 1,300,000 readers. All of these indicators consolidate it as the second largest national newspaper, directly behind El País and enjoying a large lead ahead of the rest.

According to the OJD, at the end of 2007 elmundo.es had more than 11 million individual users per month. Based on the Alexa rankings, it’s the world leader for electronic information in Spanish.

[edit] Criminal Entrapment

In October 1997, a group of people with ties to Felipe González and the Socialist Party carried out a trap against the director el EL MUNDO, by publishing a video containing sexual content that was filmed by someone hiding in a closet at an area to which Pedro J. Ramírez had been enticed by a female acquaintance. The Madrid Court convicted the former personal aid of González at the Moncloa, Ángel Patón, the former civil governor of Guipúzcoa, José Ramón Goñi Tirapu, and four others to sentences ranging from two to four years in prison. The sentence, entirely supported by the Supreme Court, established that the purpose of the entrapment had been to change the editorial stance of EL MUNDO in its coverage of the legal proceedings involving the prosecution of the GAL crimes.

[edit] The Purchase of Recoletos

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 specialized 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. Since then, he has been sharing these responsibilities along with those of Director of EL MUNDO.

[edit] Awards

  • 1981. Golden Oscar of Communication for Best Information Contributor
  • 1983. Journalist of the Year (Roundtable discussions for Mundo Abierto radio)
  • 1983. Premio Libertad (Freedom Award) as Director of Diario 16 (Club Liberal 1812)
  • 1984. Liderman Award for Best Newspaper Director
  • 1991. Víctor de la Serna Award for Best Journalistic Effort (Madrid Press Association)
  • 1992. Mariano José de Larra Award (Roundtable discussions for Mundo Abierto)
  • 1995. Premio Libertad de Expresión (Freedom of Speech Award) (León Felipe Foundation)
  • 2006. Montaigne Award (Tübingen University, Germany)
  • 2006. Fape Award (Federation of Press Associations)
  • 2007. Isaiah Berlin International Award (Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy)

[edit] Publications

[edit] External links

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