The Royal Spanish Academy has taken a significant step by integrating Alex Grijelmo as a new academic The journalist and writer, born in Burgos in 1956, will occupy the lowercase "o" chair, a position vacant since last spring following the death of architect Antonio Fernández de Alba. With this addition, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando (known as the "Doc Casa") welcomes to its ranks one of the most respected figures in the field of communication and language studies in Spain.
The proposal for his admission was not accidental, as it had the support of three heavyweight figures Within the institution: Juan Luis Cebrián, José Antonio Pascual, and Salvador Gutiérrez Ordóñez. After the announcement, the newly elected academic expressed his satisfaction and emphasized that this appointment gives special meaning to a lifetime dedicated to observing and analyzing how we express ourselves. According to the RAE's statutes, Grijelmo will now have a period of time to write and deliver his inaugural address, the official act with which he will definitively take possession of his position.
A career linked to journalistic excellence and management
Grijelmo's professional career is extensive and diverse, having begun his journey in local media such as La Voz de Castilla and then to make the leap to Europa Press in the late seventies. However, it was at the newspaper El País where he developed much of his professional maturity over sixteen years, holding positions of responsibility that included editing its famous rules manual. He is considered the main person responsible for a manual that became the stylistic bible of many writers Spaniards and Latin Americans, setting a standard of quality in the press of democracy.
Beyond print newsrooms, his management skills led him to hold executive positions at Grupo Prisa, including content director for various media outlets in the Americas. This period, in which he led the expansion of content in the American continent It allowed him to have a global and pan-Hispanic vision of the language, understanding the particularities and the richness that the community of speakers on the other side of the Atlantic brings, something that he will now be able to put into academic committees.
His tenure as president of the EFE news agency between 2004 and 2012 marked another fundamental milestone in his career. Under his leadership, one of his greatest achievements was the birth of the FundéuAn institution conceived to resolve immediate linguistic doubts in the media, and which today, under the name FundéuRAE, remains an essential tool for any professional working with language. Furthermore, its commitment to ethics led it to promote editorial statutes that guarantee journalistic independence.
Currently, his work continues, as he remains involved in teaching and in the newsroom of El País, where he has served as deputy director and assistant to the director at different times. multifaceted profile as a manager And current affairs analysts place him as a necessary bridge between the most orthodox grammatical norms and the dynamic, sometimes rushed, language that prevails in modern journalism of the 21st century.
Literary dissemination and commitment to the speaker
Grijelmo has stood out especially for his role as an essayist, publishing more than a dozen works that have achieved democratize grammatical knowledge among the general public. Titles such as "The Journalist's Style" or "A Passionate Defense of the Spanish Language" are not only studied in Information Science faculties, but have also reached the shelves of curious readers who seek to improve their writing without needing to be experts in linguistics.
Through his weekly columns and appearances on popular radio programs, Grijelmo has become a familiar face to literature lovers. These are spaces where he analyzes with a fine-tooth comb. curiosities and common mistakes that we make when speaking, always from a didactic perspective and far removed from dogmatism, which has earned him the affection of an audience that values his ability to explain complex concepts in a simple way.
Academically, her background is solid, including a PhD in Information Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid and executive education from IESE Business School. such a comprehensive academic background This has allowed him to approach the study of Spanish not only as an aesthetic tool, but as a mechanism of power and construction of social reality, analyzing how the use of certain words can influence the perception of the economy or politics.
Therefore, it is not surprising that his trophy case boasts merits that have earned him the Miguel Delibes National Journalism Prize or the Castilla y León Humanities Prize. These awards recognize a consistent career in which the word has always been the central axis, whether to report on current events, to direct a news agency of global reach, or to rescue forgotten terms from Old Spanish.
Reflections on the future of language and technology
When asked about the challenges facing the Spanish language, the new academician focused on current issues such as the impact of... biases in digital algorithms and artificial intelligence. He is particularly concerned about who controls these technological tools and how they can influence our way of thinking through automated language that does not always respect the richness and nuances of our native tongue.
Grijelmo is also critical of the direction the current education system is taking, pointing out that improving young people's ability to express themselves is a problem. It depends on the educational plans. which, in his opinion, have become less rigorous in terms of grammar. For him, it is essential that new generations rediscover the pleasure of reading and precision in writing as a tool for personal and professional freedom in an increasingly globalized world full of Anglicisms.
With her arrival in the chair, the institution reinforces the link between academia and journalism Active, ensuring that decisions about the dictionary's future are informed by the sensitivity of someone who understands firsthand how language resonates in everyday life and how it evolves in the news. Grijelmo thus joins a list of distinguished figures who safeguard the unity of a language shared by millions, contributing their expertise to ensure that Spanish remains a vibrant, precise, and democratic tool.