Juan Cruz Ruiz (1948) insisted on interviewing Pablo Neruda. The poet would pass on a ship through the port of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the native island of the journalist, editor and writer. It was 1970 and the dictatorship of Francisco Franco was still in force in the country.
The Nobel Prize winner for literature had refused to set foot in Spain while the regime continued, but Cruz insisted, arguing that the Chilean had made an exception to his promise and had descended on the Barcelona pier to greet Gabriel García Márquez. With the complicity of Neruda’s wife, Cruz achieved his mission. The anecdote depicts his unyielding journalistic vocation.
Spanish writer Juan Cruz Ruiz.
A teacher and benchmark in photojournalism, Cruz is also incessantly active on the radio., where he talks about literature and current affairs. Deputy to the presidency of Prensa Ibérica, a media group with seventeen newspapers, member of the founding team of the newspaper El País, he was editorial director of Alfaguara from 1992 to 1998.
Prolific writer of non-fiction (Egos revueltos, Ciudadano Polanco, Toda la vida pregunta, Un coup de vida) and fiction (Twelve hundred steps, Chronicle of nothing made pieces, The dream of Oslo, which won the Azorín Award, among others ), was awarded by Mario Vargas Llosa himself with the Antonio Garrido Moraga Prize for Literary Diffusion in 2021 and was distinguished with the National Prize for Cultural Journalism in 2012. In addition, he founded La Gaceta de Canarias and was a London correspondent for RNE Canarias .
The interview takes place in a luxurious Madrid hotel one afternoon in the middle of a heat wave. Not even the guests leave their rooms, sheltered under the air conditioning. Cruz drinks herbal tea with ice and assures that she does not think about the holidays because she is considering several projects at the same time.
(Also read: The lessons left by the elections in Spain / Analysis by Mauricio Vargas Linares)
There are three weeks to go before the general elections and political analysts, the ruling party and the opposition agree that the Popular Party (PP) will win with a wide advantage over the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), but Cruz doubts it. It poses a scenario very close to the one that was thrown at the polls on Sunday, July 23, a result that surprised the Spanish.
An exquisite reader of literature and human behavior, he knew how to read a plot and anticipate an outcome, which is why La Nación contacted him again, after the elections.
A few weeks ago, contrary to the majority of voices, you assured that the Popular Party would not obtain the resounding victory that was almost taken for granted in the general elections
Not that I’m a fortune teller or anything, but I had the impression that it was impossible for a party like Vox to convince the people, after having convinced the PP (in a possible pact to be able to form a majority in the Congress of Deputies) that they were fit to govern in a democracy of some experience such as the current Spanish one. There was a worldwide echo, at least in our language, and also in other parts of Europe, that the PSOE was already lost in the cause of the re-election of Pedro Sánchez. It gave me the impression after some fraudulent statements by the leader of the PP (Alberto Núñez Feijóo), in his mistakes and indecisions, that something was going to go wrong between Vox and the PP. I don’t have a great knowledge of demoscopy, on the contrary, it was pure intuition.
(You may be interested: Will the PSOE accept the conditions of the independentistas to form a government in Spain?)
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A supporter of the conservative Popular Party holds a sign that reads “Feijoo Presidente” in the PP.
How do you interpret these results? Is it a positive symptom of the health of Spanish society? Is it society’s rejection of the extreme right?
I would say that This result is a warning to the PP, a constitutional, European party, which is agreeing with the worst in Europe, which is the extreme right, as if that had no consequences. Vox’s rights for LGTBI groups, for women, for cultural freedoms are very fragile, very dangerous elements because they have to do with education, with civil liberties, elements that were supposed to be great social and political achievements of democracy Spanish. It is a regression without civil war reminiscent of the Franco dictatorship. The PP has not been able in any case to warn that they would not go through that. They were willing to govern with these people, and I believe that this bad result has saved us from a mistake that would have taken us years to rectify.
This bad result has saved us from a mistake that would have taken us years to rectify.
The PSOE also has close ties to violent and corrupt governments in Latin America…
Without a doubt, but that adherence is not needed to govern. Undoubtedly, the PSOE has a lot of reasons to be objected to, but in these elections the PP wanted to agree with a public danger to Spanish democracy. The PSOE has been cornering from the Government the closest thing to Peronism that Spain has had, which is the Peronism of Pablo Iglesias, which ceased to exist.
(You can read: This is how Sánchez and Feijóo’s accounts are in order to form a government in Spain)
The members of Unidas Podemos were absorbed by the brand new Sumar party, of Yolanda Díaz, or abandoned politics. How do you explain the decline of this game?
I think the self-infatuation destroyed him. They believed they were infallible. And they were also playing against the Transition, which is one of the most important democratic treasures of post-Francoism. They have created buttresses against the achievements of true democracy to destroy value. I believe that the future of Podemos is darkened by this destruction of value.
Was the pact with United We Can the reason why the PSOE lost so much strength?
Undoubtedly. That is why the pact is now with a woman (Díaz) who has government experience and is capable of speaking with each other. without the demagogic obligations that the most Peronist and Chavista party in European history has put on the table in Spain: the party of Pablo Iglesias. Now that alliance ended, in time, although it lasted too long.
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PSOE supporters celebrate after Sunday’s elections.
Does criticism by intellectuals still exist in Spain? Is dissent allowed? There seems to be a plurality of voices, readings and ideas, even by those who support the ruling party
It seems to me that a difference between intellectuals, thinkers or teachers and even journalists has been activated in recent times. Some are closer to the PSOE and others are closer to conservatism. At one time there was more intellectual homogeneity on the left. Now I think that each side has its expression. I’m not saying this is unhealthy, quite the contrary. But we are still in a period that seems too much like the republican days when the two factions hated each other.
(Also: Spain, on the verge of political instability? 3 scenarios after general elections)
How do you analyze journalism today, in a complex moment, with social networks in the foreground, in a scenario of ultra-political correctness and with the presence of the culture of cancellation?
It seems to me that, among others, Donald Trump, but the European extreme right have also made journalism want to look like the networks. There is a ridiculous freedom because it is not a freedom with knowledge, but a freedom to also say what you don’t know. Journalism, through social networks, has been misappropriated because it does not respond to the fundamental questions of journalism. Bill Kovach, a great writer on the subject in the United States, said that you could never do without data and facts. Today everyone feels that they are a journalist because they have received news from someone and what Kovach calls “the verification ceremony” is not performed. Today we are witnessing an accelerated deformation of what journalism should be.
Today we are witnessing an accelerated deformation of what journalism should be
That should be? How should it behave?
Eugenio Scalfari said that journalist is “people who tell people what happens to people”. That is to say: not what he thinks. Now what the journalist thinks is becoming clear. In the last election campaign, a radio journalist (Carlos Alsina) asked the Prime Minister: “Why do you lie to us so much?” The journalist did not add examples of lying.
What is the reason for this extended way of asking by slipping opinions? Is the journalist currently, in some cases, more of a protagonist than the interviewee himself? Is it due to the ‘spectacularization of the news’?
Here some journalists consider that any question is valid. The questions have to be informed. The networks today are part of journalism. The existence of networks is due to rumor, or the ability to turn rumor into something probable. Today’s journalism publishes the latest that appears on the networks as if it had already been verified. The first time that a journalistic story with all the elements was reported was when Livingston (a Scottish explorer who got lost in Africa in the mid-19th century) was found in the middle of the jungle. The journalist who found him told him: “Mister Livingston, I presume.” When Livingston confirmed it, the reporter was able to send the story to his newspaper in the United States.
(Keep reading: Spain: what does it mean for the right to win the elections, but not have majorities?)
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According to the writer, today we are witnessing an accelerated deformation of what journalism should be.
He is a veteran of the newsroom, a recognized boss. Has something been lost in journalism, in its essence, as there is a different logic today with less and less crowded newsrooms?
Newsrooms around the world have been shut down for a while, with the pandemic. Going back to them has been hard work, because journalists get used to working at home. There is a rumor that is the rumor of the newsroom, which is not the rumor of false news, that murmur that the newsroom has that makes you get up to ask someone else how they see an issue. That reference, that contrast, is over. The exercise of journalism comes from the obligation of contrast: is what I am telling true? Am I counting it right? If you’re home alone, you probably won’t ask anyone. This is destroying journalism.
Have you ever lived through a time like this of ultracorrection?
Only under Franco, with censorship and cancellations.
An Argentine editor of an important media outlet said that you cannot be a good journalist if you are a bad person.
I agree. You have to be a good person to contrast. And news cannot be spread if it is not relevant and what is relevant is perceived by you if you are someone who has faith in people.
A life dedicated to letters
-Juan Cruz Ruiz (Tenerife, 1948) has a degree in Journalism from the University of Laguna.
-He developed an extensive career as a journalist in the Spanish newspaper El País, where he has worked since its founding in 1976.
-He directed the Alfaguara publishing house from 1992 to 1998. He recalled his years as editor in his books Egos revueltos (XXII Comillas Award), Species in extinction, For the pleasure of reading: Beatriz de Moura, editor by vocation and All my life asking.
-His extensive literary work was displayed in works such as Chronicle of Nothing in Pieces, The Dream of Oslo, The Photo of the Swedes, Portrait of a Naked Man, Hopefully October and Many times you asked me to tell you about those years.
-Among other distinctions, he has obtained the Benito Pérez Armas, Azorín novel and National Cultural Journalism prizes.
-He is passionate about literature and when asked which author always surprises him, he answers: “Rosa Montero, in Spain. And in Latin America, Laura Restrepo”.
LAURA VENTURA
FOR THE NATION (ARGENTINA) – GDA
MADRID
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