Pepa Bueno, new editor-in-chief of EL PAÍS

The management board of EL PAÍS has agreed to start the process to name a new editor-in-chief for the Spanish daily. The journalist Pepa Bueno has been proposed for the post. The current editor-in-chief is Javier Moreno, who will maintain ties with the news organization.

Bueno, 57, has a long career in journalism and is well known for her broadcast work. In 2012, she joined the Cadena SER radio network, which is owned by PRISA, and became a member of the latter’s editorial board. PRISA also owns EL PAÍS.

She is currently the host of Hora 25, a Cadena SER show with over one million listeners, and is a regular contributor to EL PAÍS. Besides her experience in both print and broadcast journalism, Bueno has successfully led teams and newsrooms, making her a good choice to head PRISA’s strategy based on the convergence of all its media outlets.

The proposal will now be officially communicated to the employees’ council of EL PAÍS and submitted to a non-binding vote by staff. It will then go to the boards of EL PAÍS and PRISA for ratification.

The management board of EL PAÍS has thanked Javier Moreno for his dedication and professionalism as editor-in-chief, a position he has held twice. During his second term, which began in June 2020, Moreno was a driving force behind the newspaper’s digital transformation and adoption of a subscription model. In one year, EL PAÍS added nearly 110,000 digital subscribers.

These changes follow a reorganization process of PRISA Media’s editorial area, aimed at achieving a coordinated cross-media management of all its assets (both in radio and print) based on intersectional platforms that will maximize the reach of PRISA content throughout the entire Spanish-speaking market.

Born in Badajoz, in Spain’s western Extremadura region, Bueno has a degree in journalism from Madrid’s Complutense University. She began working for the national public radio service RNE in Extremadura, and was later promoted to news chief for RNE in the regions of Aragón and Madrid.

In 1991, she became a television news anchor for the state broadcaster RTVE, first in Andalusia and later in Madrid. In September 1996, Bueno became deputy director of the television program Gente, and eight years later she took over the morning news show Los Desayunos de TVE. In 2009 she began directing and hosting the evening newscast Telediario 2 on TVE, earning several accolades for her work. In 2012, she joined the Cadena SER’s radio show Hoy por Hoy, which led audience ratings for as long as she was at the helm. In 2019, she became the head of the night newscast Hora 25. Bueno has also been a contributor to programs on the private television networks Telecinco and Cuatro.

In print journalism, she has been a contributor to EL PAÍS as well as Diario 16, El Periódico de Catalunya and La Vanguardia, among others. She holds numerous awards for her journalism work.

Javier Moreno was born in Paris in 1963. He has a degree in chemistry from the University of Valencia and worked in that field in Germany – BASF, Ludwigshafen – until 1992, when he completed the Madrid Autonomous University (UAM) and EL PAÍS master’s degree in journalism. He first joined the business desk of the newspaper, and in 1994 he transferred to the Mexico newsroom, the genesis for today’s EL PAÍS América edition. After returning to Spain in 1997, he worked in the newspaper’s international desk. In 1999 he was appointed editor of the business section, and in 2002 he became the correspondent for the paper in Berlin. In 2003, he was appointed editor-in-chief of PRISA’s business newspaper, Cinco Días.

In 2005, he returned to Madrid and was initially in charge of the Sunday edition, then became managing editor at EL PAÍS, answering to the editor-in-chief. In 2006, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the newspaper, he was appointed editor-in-chief, remaining in the role until May 2014. During that time, the newspaper underwent the first major redesign of its print edition since its foundation. He also merged the print and digital sections in order to launch the current online edition.

The newsroom was involved in international exclusives such as the leak of secret US embassy cables, together with The New York Times and The Guardian, the exclusive known as Chinaleaks, as well as relevant domestic stories such as the so-called “Bárcenas papers,” and many more. In 2013, he launched the Americas edition of the paper.

After leaving his role in 2014, Moreno became the founding director of the Leading European Newspaper Alliance (LENA), which groups together eight top-flight newspapers in Europe: Le Figaro, Le Soir, Tages-Anzeiger, Tribune de Genève, Die Welt, La Repubblica, Gazeta Wyborcza and EL PAÍS. He headed up the UAM-EL PAÍS Journalism School from December 2017 until June 2018, when he was appointed editor-in-chief of EL PAÍS in America, which is based in Mexico City.

Two years later, in June 2020, he returned to Madrid as editor-in-chief of EL PAÍS, replacing Soledad Gallego-Díaz.