Something very powerful must compel a 65-year-old, happily retired for two years, to return to the front lines, to the television trenches and to the daily battle for viewers. This is what the Spaniard Luis Fernández did, who was appointed this week president of Telemundo, the Spanish-language channel of the NBCUniversal group, where he was already in charge of news between 2016 and 2021. “I’ve lost all credibility in the world,” he jokes. “It's hard to explain. I had been working for 46 years, but someone called me [César Conde, presidente de la corporación] who I value personally and professionally and who tells me: “You have to take care of this.” The story has little chicha, but that's how it is. I resisted, I had other opportunities in America and Spain, but in the end I said yes,” he says from the editorial office in Miami on his “second day of school.”
“Great leader. Very passionate, a real journalist. A guerrilla,” the various statements collected for this report about the figure of this journalist born in Santo Domingo de la Calzada (La Rioja) agree. The same idea comes up in several conversations: He doesn't usually have an office and when he does, it's open and he practically never uses it. “When it starts, it pushes you to your limits, but you don't notice it or take it into account,” recalls Gemma García, a Spanish journalist, now at RTVE and one of its main collaborators, on her first appearance on stage in Telemundo. “He does not control the technical part, the factory, because he was the boss from a young age, but he is there in the editorial department, even to get the food,” García continues, recalling two characteristics of his manner, Control: “He surrounds himself with people who know more than him and recognizes this, he does not adopt other people's ideas.” “He always listens and can change his mind, even if the person who is talking to him “He manages the teams like Ted Lasso, like a football coach,” he concludes.
César Conde is the key figure in the movement that brought Fernández to his final home. Conde is the first Latino to lead NBCUniversal News Group and the first president of the company, whose aegis also includes Telemundo. Here's how he commented on his commitment on Wednesday: “Throughout his extraordinary career, Luis has consistently demonstrated visionary leadership qualities, building and expanding the most successful Spanish-language media organizations in the United States and abroad.” With the return of the Spanish executive, Conde wants the weight , which Telemundo has won in recent months, in a key year, the presidential elections in November 2024.
The revolutionary of RTVE
Before his American adventure, Fernández marked a crucial era in Spanish television. In 2006 he was the first president of the RTVE, elected by consensus between the PSOE and PP. The president of the socialist government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, had sponsored a law to degovernmentalize the public institution and exclude it from the partisan struggle. Fernández accepted the challenge and was determined to make RTVE an independent and credible media. He fundamentally changed the model he inherited and revitalized news. He also launched programs designed to bring political leaders closer to television viewers, such as “I Have a Question for You.”
Supported by an unprecedented pact in Parliament, Fernández set out to create a modern, pluralistic, objective and competitive television. Their roadmap was to restore social credibility, strengthen political independence and achieve economic viability for a company that had lived in the shadow of political power for half a century. “I'm putting on the jersey of RTVE and the civil service,” he announced during his first appearance in the House of Representatives, which, to everyone's surprise, he arrived on a scooter.
Luis Fernández arrives for his first appearance at the Congress (image provided by Hernández himself).
He was elected to a six-year term, but threw in the towel midway through. He resigned in 2009, two months after the law reforming RTVE's funding model came into force, which brought with it the radical disappearance of advertising. Their disagreement over this rule was the trigger. “We came to do a job with a law that they changed in the middle of the game,” his employees complained.
The journalist had replaced Carmen Caffarel, who had the unpleasant task of reducing RTVE's workforce through a regulatory act that eliminated 4,000 jobs. Caffarel laid the foundation on which Fernández built his television model. News broadcasts changed not only in form but also in content. Over time, many experts in the group of states have recognized these years as the years of greatest credibility, accuracy and independence. Here’s how Fran Llorente, then the company’s news director, now at Prisa Media, sums it up: “He’s a great guy. He is the best president in the history of RTVE. They are undeniable things. He has the ability to lead and drive projects forward and not be satisfied with the paths already taken. I was fortunate that he always supported us in our fight for political independence. And this is how the best RTVE news programs could be created. “He took away the gray and gave the company the color orange.” A bet that, as several analyzes show, was supported in another area by successful fictions such as Águila rojo or Isabel.
It is this independence that the sources consulted speak of and that Fernández himself shows when this newspaper asks him to define his career. “I am independent in journalism until death.” Iñaki Gabilondo said of him: “Spain is one or the other.” Luis Fernández is one and the other.”
Luis Fernandez, in Key Biscayne, Florida.Marco Bello
In his modernization plan, Fernández planned to build a new RTVE headquarters outside the Prado del Rey. This included the sale of the Torrespaña property where the news channels are located near the M30 in Madrid. also the Buñuel Studios and Prado del Rey itself. The pharaonic and enormously complex project did not receive government approval.
He officially left the country in 2009 for “purely personal” reasons, but his departure was due to a series of disagreements with the government. The bad relations with La Moncloa were not new. In 2000, he was fired as Telecinco's news director, a position he held for four years. At that time, the news programs achieved high ratings on private channels, but their independent line did not please the manager of José María Aznar, who asked for his head.
“When in doubt, journalism”
Those who have seen his work assure that he is the perfect link between the more corporate North American business culture and the Latin American socio-cultural universe, which is probably more chaotic and creative. The praise is not limited to his professional environment. Daniel Coronell, president of Noticias Univisión, the network that competes with Telemundo for Spanish-speaking audiences, described it for this newspaper: “It's an idea generation machine. Creativity always shapes his work. He is a fearsome and tireless competitor, but also a great friend. “I have great affection and respect for him.”
Luis Fernández, President of Telemundo, working on the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, home of the team of his life and his great passion outside of journalism (photo with advertising).
“I always give my editors the rule: 'When in doubt, do journalism.' When there are problems and pressure, the magic formula is not to make mistakes. “Augusto Delkáder taught me at SER,” Fernández recalled in an interview in 2006. These editors, those of today and of years ago, and the management teams he formed, are part of the Spanish journalistic fabric and not only in the audiovisual panorama. In addition to being news director at the Prisa Group network (publisher of this newspaper) between 1990 and 1995, Fernández also held this position at Canal+ until moving to Telecinco in 1996. He previously worked at Cope and worked with Telemadrid on a comprehensive curriculum.
Fernández's life cannot be understood without Real Madrid. His passion outside of journalism became a professional mission between 2014 and 2016, when he left Univisión and before joining Telemundo, where for two years he was general director responsible for the expansion of the white club throughout Asia.
Fernández was, according to those around him, “in blessed glory,” living the life of a traveling retiree, a quiet existence between Spain and the United States, where his three children study and work. Now his journalistic passion has brought him closer to his people and a little away from the Bernabéu. “I have a privilege and am very grateful for life. “I'm a journalist, right?” he concludes from Miami.
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