EL PAÍS to name new editor next week

EL PAÍS publisher and PRISA president Juan Luis Cebrián announced on Tuesday the appointment of Washington correspondent Antonio Caño as the daily’s new editor, replacing Javier Moreno, who has held that position since 2006.

The board of directors of EL PAÍS will vote next week on Cebrián’s nomination. If approved, Caño, who is currently responsible for the Americas edition, will assume his new duties on May 4 – the date of the newspaper’s 38^th anniversary.

Complying with the statutes governing EL PAÍS’s newsroom, Cebrián informed the workers’ committee of the proposed appointment. EL PAÍS journalists have the right to hold a non-binding confidence vote on all key appointments made at the newspaper.

The announcement was made to EL PAIS’s editorial supervisors, including assistant managing editors, section editors and department chiefs, during a meeting presided by Cebrián, PRISA CEO Fernando Abril-Martorell, PRISA News and Radio CEO José Luis Sainz, Moreno and Caño.

A native of Martos, Jaén province, the 56-year-old Caño graduated from Madrid’s Complutense University with a journalism degree. He worked for Efe news agency before joining EL PAÍS in 1982, where he has held several positions, including head of the international section and managing editor of the Sunday edition. He has worked as correspondent in Mexico and Central America, but for the last 10 years he was chief correspondent at EL PAÍS’s Washington bureau. During his career, he has interviewed numerous presidents and international figures.

Recently, Caño was put in charge of developing and launching EL PAÍS’s Americas web edition aimed at readers across Latin America. Last November, EL PAÍS also launched a Portuguese-language Brazil edition with a bureau in São Paulo.

Moreno, 50, was born in Paris and graduated with a degree in chemistry from the University of Valencia. He worked in that field until 1992, the year he entered the EL PAÍS master’s program. He started out in the economy section before he joined the Mexico edition in 1994 as chief editor.

After returning to Madrid, Moreno served as the head of the international section and in 2002 became Berlin correspondent. A year later, he was named editor of Cinco Días, the financial daily published by PRISA and later became assistant managing editor of the EL PAÍS Sunday edition. In 2006, he was named editor of the newspaper.