Prisa fires Juan Luis Cebrián as honorary president of El País for “breach of contract”

The board of directors of Prisa Media has decided “unanimously” to dismiss Juan Luis Cebrián as honorary president of El País, once the founder and director of the newspaper has joined the list of collaborators of the conservative media. The Objective, where he will do video interviews with different personalities.

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According to Prisa sources, Cebrián “did not request the mandatory authorization to collaborate in another media outlet.” “The announcement of his next collaboration as a journalist in another medium constitutes a material breach of the terms of the collaboration contract currently in force between Juan Luis Cebrián and El País, in which an exclusive relationship was established,” the same sources point out. .

This newspaper has contacted Juan Luis Cebrián to obtain his version, but he has refused to respond to elDiario.es with the argument that “it has not received any communication so far” from Prisa.

The hiring of Juan Luis Cebrián by the conservative media The Objective caused “deep discomfort” in the management of Prisa. Sources from the editor of El País and Cadena Ser assured that the hiring of Cebrián by the conservative media had been very bad for the communication group since “The Objective is everything we fight against: a far-right hoax machine.” ”.

According to the editorial group of El País and Cadena Ser “the authorization to collaborate in another medium, mandatory to be able to proceed with his new project, was not requested or communicated at any time by Cebrián, thus breaching his contract.”

Thus, the Board of Directors of Prisa Media “unanimously considers that the status of Honorary President of the newspaper requires loyal behavior and contractual compliance that has not occurred in this case” and has decided to terminate Cebrián abruptly.

Cebrián (Madrid, 1944) was the founder and first director of El País and held positions of corporate responsibility as president and CEO of Grupo Prisa for 42 years until he was named honorary president of the newspaper on May 21, 2018. His departure was through an abrupt process where he tried to stay in power with the creation of a foundation that managed the business group, in which Cebrián himself would serve as president. Since 2018 he has written an opinion page with varying frequency in which, above all, he has attacked the coalition Executive chaired by Pedro Sánchez.

This is the first collaboration outside of Grupo Prisa de Cebrián, which follows in the footsteps of Antonio Caño. Caño was director of El País between 2014 and 2018 and left Prisa in a turbulent manner after exercising a controversial leadership by trying to place the newspaper’s ideological line to the right. After a few months as a columnist for The Objective where he has maintained a obsessive criticism against Pedro SánchezCaño was named president of the Editorial Board of the conservative digital.

The Objective is directed by Álvaro Nieto, who was editor-in-chief of the Spain section of El País for a short period of time. The media he directs has maintained a very hard line in his information about the Prisa Group pointing out the alleged connections with the Government of Pedro Sánchez.