Juan Tomás de Salas (1938–2000) was a Spanish journalist. He was born in

Valladolid Valladolid () is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and de facto capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the province o ...

on April 30, 1938, and died in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

on 22 August 2000. He was the founder of ''Cambio 16'' and ''Diario 16''. In the 1960s he also worked for the

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

n newspaper '' El Tiempo''.

Education and exile

De Salas studied law in Madrid and obtained a PhD in Economic History at

La Sorbonne The University of Paris (french: link=no, Université de Paris), Metonymy, metonymically known as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception between 1793 and 1806 under the French Revo ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. During his youth he also showed enthusiasm for journalism and interest in political activism. He began to engage in anti- Francoist activities, and in 1961 joined the Free Spanish Press Agency, associated with the People's Liberation Front. In 1962, when police arrested nearly a hundred members of the organization, de Salas had to seek political asylum. He managed to take refuge in the embassy of

in Spain, and moved to

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

. In

he started working with the newspaper '' El Tiempo'', and that is where he seriously began to be involved in journalism. In 1966 he moved to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

to work at France Press, and in 1969 to

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, where he worked for the Spanish version of ''The Economist''. That same year he was allowed to return to Spain when he was acquitted.

Career

He founded in 1971, along with 15 other journalists and media professionals the weekly Cambio 16. Under

Francoist Spain Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spai ...

, the magazine focused on issues of "Economy and Society", and after Franco's death, became a magazine of general information, which achieved great prominence during the Spanish Transition. The success of the publication led him to found a general newspaper called Diario 16, which was released on 18 October 1976. During 1980, the good sales of his two publications led him to form a media conglomerate. He created ''Grupo'' 16, under which magazines like ''Motor 16'' or ''Marie Claire'' were also released. However, during the 1990 publications went through a serious crisis, led by the poor economic performance of ''Diario 16''. This crisis ended with the sale or even closure of almost all the magazines within his group. ''Diario 16'' began

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proceedings in 1997 and Juan Tomás left the group entirely. In 1998 he launched the satirical weekly ''El gato encerrado'', but it failed for lack of funding and De Salas gave up all entrepreneurial activities. For the rest of his life he continued to publish opinion pieces in various publications. He adopted Colombian dual citizenship, for which he was entitled for his years of work there and as a reminder of the country that welcomed him during his exile. Juan Tomas de Salas died on August 22, 2000, at age 62, victim of cancer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salas, Juan Tomas De 1938 births 2000 deaths Writers from Valladolid Naturalized citizens of Colombia Spanish emigrants to Colombia 20th-century Spanish journalists