Spain: Alfonso Armada, new president of the Spanish Section of Reporters Without Borders

Organisation:

RSF_en

With an emotional memory to Malén Aznárez, president of Reporters Without Borders Spain from 2011 until her death on July 30, María Dolores Masana opened the assembly of partners of the organization, which met on Monday, November 6 in Madrid to choose its representatives after the death of the unforgettable journalist.

By unanimity of all the members present in the assembly and those who delegated their vote, Alfonso Armada, a long-standing cultural reporter and journalist, was elected the new president of Reporteros Sin Fronteras España. The current president, Macu de la Cruz, resumes her position as vice president, while the vacancy in the other vice presidency left by the appointment of Alfonso Armada, is occupied by Alicia Gómez Montano, veteran journalist of Televisión Española (TVE). Rosa Meneses, a reporter for the newspaper El Mundo, remains the general secretary of the organization.

"I accept with responsibility the difficult challenge of being at the height of Malén Aznárez, who carried out her work with an admirable passion. I hope that her legacy will enlighten me to face the challenges that await us", said Alfonso Armada, who took his next steps at the helm of RSF Spain in the following directions: consolidate the organization as champion of the defense of freedom of information in our country, linking a greater number of journalists to the mission of RSFSpain, defending a journalism based on the truth of facts and data and combative with false news, as well as consolidating the organization's ties with Latin America .

This last point is strategic in the new stage undertaken by the Spanish section of RSF, as its growing visibility in Spanish-speaking countries and the close ties that link Spanish and Latin American journalism, faced with extremely complex situations, constitute a full field of growth opportunities. "It is time for the ties between Latin America and Spain to materialize in fruitful projects for both parties," said Alfonso Armada, who closed his speech with verses by the Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner Wislawa Szymborska, which perfectly summarizes the ethical obligation that every journalist faces every day: "Yesterday I behaved badly in the cosmos. I lived all day without asking for anything, without being surprised about anything ... "

Alfonso Armada (Vigo, 1958) is a journalism graduate from the Complutense University of Madrid and in interpretation by the Royal School of Dramatic Arts. In 2012 he joined Reporters Without Borders as vice president. For 14 years he worked for the newspaper El País, five of which as a correspondent for Africa, and since 1999 for ABC, where he held the following positions: correspondent in New York (1999-2005), journalistic director of the Master ABC / UCM (2009 -2015), director of the ABC Cultural supplement (2015-2017) and cultural correspondent (since September of this year). It has covered the siege of Sarajevo, the Rwandan genocide and the attack on the Twin Towers. He was deputy director of Teatra magazine and is editor and director of the digital magazine FronteraD. He has published, among others, the books Cuadernos Africanos; Spain, from sun to sun; The rumor of the border (Journey by the border between the United States and Mexico); New York, the desire and the chimera; New York Dictionary; Sarajevo Diaries of the Bosnian war, and El Celta is not to blame, in addition to theater (The Golden Age of Dogs / No Damned Hope) and poetry in Galician (Pita velenosa, door two hazards and TSC, Diario da noite) and in Spanish (The Storms,Failure of Tangier and Russian Notebook). He is the author of the blogs Violent Rain (ABC) and The viewpoint (FronteraD).