The afternoon I said goodbye to the newspaper today I burst into tears like a child without anyone paying much attention to me, probably because the next morning I showed up enthusiastically at the editorial office. The Country. Pain and joy were perfectly compatible at that time, October 1986, because I felt equally grateful to two newspapers whose relations had not been exactly cordial since their founding in 1976. Today, as a retiree who is active in writing, I feel equally longing for and pleased with that change. , which curators Jordi Panyella, Toni Brosa and Carles Sabaté have staged until May 24 at the Palau Robert.
Brosa was the colleague who replaced me in the today after Emilio Pérez de Rozas proposed that I join the sports section of The Country. I still remember that I arrived at the Zona Franca newsroom with a dictionary and a grammar book of the Spanish language because I spoke and wrote in Catalan since I started in The 9 New (1978), I began to collaborate in Catalonia Radio (1983) and I trained in today (1980-1986). My connection with Castilian was referred to the chronicles that as Osona correspondents we sent with my friend and colleague Salvador Sala to Daily World y Europa Press in the times of UAB students.
I was lucky that the director of The 9 New and at the same time the head of sports of the today outside Ramon Serra, journalist from Taradell and collaborator of TVE in Sant Cugat. He bet on me when that newspaper still maintained the enthusiasm and fever of many of the thousands of Catalans who supported his departure on April 23, 1976, Sant Jordi’s Day, in the midst of post-Francoism after overcoming the many obstacles put in place by the Ministry of Information and Tourism. Some 36,000 subscribers each contributed between 1,000 and 100,000 pesetas, which made it possible to raise the 60 million necessary to publish the first Catalan newspaper since the civil war (1936-1939). The collection was also accompanied by an excellent cultural fund with works by Dalí, Miró and Tàpias.
The poor business management, decisive given the lack of economic solvency, and the instability in the management played against the popularity of an increasingly politically pointed newspaper, supported above all by the voluntarism of many professionals and without its news having much echo in the other media published in Catalonia. The disdain reinforced the sense of belonging and pride of the collective of the today in the same way that the commitment to the language was unequivocal from the beginning marked by the presence of a team of a dozen editors led by Joan Fortuny.
Nothing surprising if you take into account that the challenge was huge because it was about creating a journalistic lexicon, updating and modernizing a language that had been very rich before the dictatorship in different media, helping a majority of editors taught in Spanish and, therefore, having the work of Pompeu Fabra as their go-to book. Many of us, even those of us who came from a Catalan publication, will never forget the help we had from a master proofreader like Ricard Fité. Militancy in the profession and in the newspaper was learned from Maria Favà and the reference for knowing how to be was Pep Playà.
Professionalization and specialization came later with Ángel del Castillo and friends of the stature of Jaume Pujol-Galcerán, Eloy Rendondo and, above all, the beloved Robert Álvarez. Del Castillo’s intervention was essential for me to continue in the today. I had gone to Valladolid to complete my military service with the certainty that they would save my job when upon my return I found that Jordi Maluquer had been replaced as director by Jaume Serrats. I was left in limbo, without a honeymoon trip – Montse settled for three nights in Mallorca – and tied to a typewriter, pending the decision of the section head, who took pity on me and was happy and also upset because I had to abandon daily collaboration with Catalunya Radioa station I joined in 1983 thanks to Santi Carreras and Lluís Canut.
I have not had a better friend than Carreras nor has anyone treated me with more affection than my captain Emilio Pérez de Rozas. and they invite me to the gathering Matí de Catalunya Ràdio. He notebook of the newspaper and the radio programs – I also participate in the That you play with Radio Barcelona- allow me to write and speak today in the same mother tongue with which I started in the today
to the many leading journalists who have left the newspaper, an excellent pool of professionals, and also to those who continue firmly on the job since the union with The Point in 2011 (The Point Today). The route invites nostalgia and gratitude from many journalists who have followed a similar path and also, therefore, from a village boy who arrived in the capital who knew he wanted to be a journalist when he set foot on the today
It is impossible not to cry again and insist now, and unlike then, on the need to strengthen my Catalan and to strive not to commit barbarisms when I write in Spanish, typical of those of us who manage bilingualism, as the dear readers of El País sometimes remind me, with different events in Barcelona, all the more reason to certify and celebrate the luck I had in choosing the Free Trade Zone.
